


Pacify Part 3: Solace

by Chickenpets



Series: Pacify [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Angst, Art, Begging, Bondage, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bottom Harry Potter, Boundaries, Breathplay, Dom/sub, Enthusiastic Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Meditation, Mentor Severus Snape, Obsession, Occlumency, Pacifyverse, Panic Attacks, Passion, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Redemption, Secrets, Top Severus Snape, Torture, War, Whipping, cannon-adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 105,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22848010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chickenpets/pseuds/Chickenpets
Summary: NOW WITH ART!Solace:1. comfort in grief : alleviation of grief or anxiety2. a source of relief or consolationLove him enough, teach him enough, make him strong enough, and maybe it will be enough.That was Severus’ mantra, now.Love him, teach him, strengthen him, save him.Over and over again, in his mind. Like wish, or a prayer.Love him. Teach him. Strengthen him. Save him.Over and over and over.It was the loudest at night, when Harry was asleep beside him. Intrusive, sometimes. Keeping him awake.SAVE HIM.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Series: Pacify [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595650
Comments: 1316
Kudos: 1413





	1. The Brightest in the Year

**Author's Note:**

> Pacify One-shots and Au's  
> https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786204
> 
> Pacify Playlist:  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0rf51eMOz60O5WLQLlJJ40?si=lumjtZAaQLCYUBQJmwzVBw
> 
> Pacify Doodles:  
> https://www.deviantart.com/chickenpets

As the winter broke into a cold, wet, and windy spring, nothing at all happened. Well, things happened, of course, but normal things. Harry tried to get his Quidditch team up to snuff, and did his homework, and came down to the dungeons to be with Severus. He continued to work on his ‘intention magic,’ as Severus called it, and did as he was told and didn’t succeed at Apparition too early. Harry wasn’t really sure that it _would_ be so easy for him, but he didn’t try very hard, just in case. He was too young to test with the first group, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Hermione and Ron were still at odds, but they each seemed to have independently decided that Harry didn’t need to be interrogated every day. Ron was being friendly and nice, and didn’t shout at him anymore, and Hermione was helpful, and if the two of them weren’t speaking to each other, fine. They’d get over it eventually. Maybe even soon - because Ron and Lavender didn’t seem that happy together. Harry thought that maybe Ron had made her promise not to say anything about what she’s heard in McGonagall’s office, too, because he hadn’t heard anyone whispering about him in the corridors. Well, people still whispered, but it was the regular stuff. All _Chosen One_ and _Boy Who Lived_ type stuff. No suicide rumors, and nothing about Snape, thank god. 

Things had calmed down. And Harry didn’t even have to worry about dodging Slughorn's parties anymore. Not after the assignment from Dumbledore. Harry had made a single feeble attempt to wheedle the Horcrux memory out of Professor Slughorn, but had failed so horribly that all future meetings of the _Slug Club_ seemed to be canceled. His “cheek” in presenting Slughorn with a bezoar instead of a brewed antidote had not been enough to impress the truth out of him. He’d been infuriated, in fact, and had shouted at Harry that he didn’t know _anything at all_ about Horcruxes. 

His reaction had been so strong that Harry had dropped it immediately. And though Hermione was sure that Slughorn just needed to be persuaded, and Ron was sure that Slughorn loved Harry so much that he should just keep asking, Harry was not at all confident in either of those ideas. He’d been rebuffed so forcefully that the only real option seemed to be to let him cool off. Lull him into a false sense of security, maybe, and then try again later.

He wished he could talk to Severus about it. Slughorn had been Severus’ head of house. He probably knew all kinds of things about him. But Dumbledore had told Harry not to involve Snape, which was honestly excruciating. Severus was who he went to when he was lost and confused, wasn’t he? But he’d promised Dumbledore he wouldn’t, and after what Dumbledore had done for them with the Governors, he felt like he owed it to him to obey. So, instead, Harry just re-read his copy of Advanced Potions Making over and over, hoping sixteen-year-old Severus would give him a hint.

The real Severus was acting a little differently towards Harry, too, now. After the hearing, and the disastrous start of term, and that first night - he was… well, not solicitous, exactly, but sort of… careful with him. He kept trying to get Harry to do these weird breathing exercises that Harry didn’t like, and when Harry tried to get some force out of him, he absolutely refused. It was almost like he thought that Harry wanted him to be gentle all the time, now, because he’d asked for it _once_. But that was wrong, and Severus wouldn’t listen. They had a fight about it, actually. A big one. 

Harry had screamed at him that he didn’t go through all this bullshit to have Severus treat him like everyone else did, and that he wanted things to go back to how they had been before. Before his _suicide attempt_ was what he’d meant, of course, and even though he didn’t say that out loud, Severus seemed to hear it, and had gotten very drunk, and smashed a glass, and sent him back to his dorm. Harry spent that night fuming in his hangings, and glared silently at the floor all through class the next day. But then, after dinner, Severus called Harry back to the dungeons, and offered him a compromise. 

Severus sat him down and told him that, unless Harry got used to showing sparks, he would not hurt him anymore. At least, not as much as Harry wanted. So, they would have to make a deal. And they made one, and now Harry had four colors of sparks: Green for _more_ , gold for _enough_ , red for _stop_ , and finally purple, for when he didn’t know what color to use. 

Severus made him swear that when he was asked for his color, he would answer verbally, or with sparks, no matter what. Green, gold, red, or purple. _No matter what._ And Harry said fine, and Severus glared at him, so Harry said, _“yes, Sir,”_ instead _._

That was their new thing, now. The Colors.

At first, Harry didn’t think he would ever need purple. It sounded stupid, really - the idea that he wouldn’t know if he wanted more or not. But he found out almost immediately that he was mistaken. The very first time they tried it out, in fact, he realized that he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought he did. 

He’d been face down on the dining table, and Severus was finally - _finally -_ giving him the belt, and the first few times Severus asked him, Harry answered, _“green,”_ with progressively more annoyance at having to answer. 

“Green.”

_“Green.”_

_“Green!”_

_“GREEN!_ Jeez, how many times are you going to make me say it?”

“As many times as I want to hear it, Potter.”

“Fine, _fuck.”_

But then, after a while - Harry didn’t know how long, exactly, but long enough that he’d been really black and blue the next day - Severus had leaned over him, breathing against the back of his neck and pressing up against the welts on his skin, and demanded his color, and Harry realized that he didn’t know. Had no fucking idea, in fact. So, he said, _“purple.”_

Gasped it, really. _Sobbed_ it.

After that he hadn’t been nearly as scornful about the colors.

It happened like that a lot, actually. Green for _more_ , yes, but purple pretty often, too. Purple, for _I don’t even know my own name._

Purple sparks usually resulted in Severus deciding for him, which was ok, even if Severus sometimes decided that he’d really meant red. That’s what happened that first time, and it happened a couple of other times, too. And when Severus decided that _purple_ really meant _red_ , he would stop, and make Harry discuss it, afterwards. Harry didn’t really like that, but he did it because it was what Severus wanted, and usually Severus waited a while before trying to make him talk, which was ok. He didn’t just demand an explanation right away, or anything. They would talk about it the next day over drinks, or through the bracelets, or cuddled up together in bed, late at night. 

It wasn’t so bad.

After a while, Harry started to almost like it. Severus seemed to trust him more now that he was using the colors, anyway. And that, he _definitely_ liked. He even started practicing the stupid breathing thing Severus wanted him to do: stretching out his breaths until his exhales were longer than his inhales, for twenty cycles every night before bed. Severus said it was supposed to make him sleep, and it sort of did. It worked a lot better when he was in the dungeons and Severus was right there watching him do it, of course, but sometimes it worked in Gryffindor tower, too. 

Harry started asking for Dreamless Sleep a little less often. Maybe once or twice a week.

He was feeling better. Almost good, sometimes. It really did seem like things had calmed down. 

Harry didn’t know what Hermione was doing, though. 

And what Hermione was doing was watching Harry. 

Well, watching Harry interact with Professor Snape, that was.

She watched him in class, and in the corridors, and at meals. Anywhere that Harry and Snape might be within eyesight of each other. She felt a little bit bad watching him like that, but Harry refused to tell her anything after the disaster outside the portrait hole that first day. She’d tried to ask him tons of times, in all kinds of ways, but he was evasive. More evasive than he’d ever been about anything before, in fact, and that made her worried.

He’d told her freely about the Minister of Magic cornering him at the Burrow, and had even shown her his mother’s letters, but he wouldn’t say anything at all about Professor Snape, or the board of Governors, and wouldn’t tell her much about taking the Dreamless Sleep, either. He just said that he’d been sad about the letters (which was understandable - Hermione cried herself when she read them), and hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, so he figured if he took more than one dose he would just sleep for a long time. And that was true, in a way, she supposed. He could have slept forever. And that, of course, made her _very_ worried.

He didn’t say it, but Hermione got the impression that Professor Snape had saved his life at the Burrow, which made Ron’s reaction to seeing Harry in the corridor pretty bizarre. Ginny told her that Ron had _shoved_ him. Had almost _punched him_ . And that had certainly never happened before. Ginny told her, too, that Ron had accused Harry of making him _‘lie to my own mother,’_ and Hermione herself had heard Ron shouting that Snape had taken Harry away in the middle of the night. And Snape had been there, too, at the end of the summer, guarding Harry’s bed, hadn’t he? Throwing out his arms to hold everyone back until Harry said it was ok. 

So, she had to wonder: why, exactly, was Professor Snape in charge of Harry, now? Or if he wasn’t, what was he doing? And why was Harry going along with it? And keeping it a secret from _her?_

Hermione trusted Professor Snape, and had done for years. But this… this was new. The way he’d fallen beside Harry’s chair in Professor McGonagall’s office, and laid his hand on Harry’s back, and sent them all out - like _he_ was responsible for Harry. Like he was Harry’s guardian, or something. And Harry hadn’t even flinched at the touch of his hand, either, though Hermione was quite sure she had never seen Professor Snape touch him before.

It was more than that, though. More than just a lack of rejection. The touch had looked familiar. Almost _intimate._ And that was _very_ different, and she did not know what he could possibly mean by it. Touching Harry. Hermione wasn’t sure she’d ever seen _any_ teacher touch Harry. At least… not like that.

Over the summer Ron had written to her a lot. He’d told her about how listless Harry seemed, and how he was pretty sure he wasn’t sleeping very much, and how one morning Harry hadn’t woken up and how scary it had been. And then, later, he wrote to her that Harry was found in Snape’s room, and that there was a fight, and that he’d never seen Professor Lupin so angry before in his life. Ron had told her about Lupin shouting, pointing into Snape’s face and threatening to _kill him._ And then Dumbledore had come, and separated them, and Harry had hurt himself, and been taken away. And then, what? Snape took him away from the Burrow, too. And it had gone all the way to the Board of Governors. 

She wished she could have been there in the meeting between Ron and Professor Snape, because Ron had come out of it turned completely around. But she hadn’t been there, and she didn’t want to know badly enough to ask Ron about it. As far as she was concerned, Ron could fall right into a ditch and let _Lav-Lav_ help him out of it. Fucking Lavender Brown, inserting her into all kinds of situations. Hearing about Harry’s overdose as if she was relevant _at all._

Well, Hermione had taken care of that, at least, hadn’t she? She’d cornered Lavender in the girls bathroom and given her a choice: either have her memory modified, or swear to never tell a single soul what she’d heard in McGonagall’s office. Lavender had sworn readily, and had not broken her promise, possibly afraid that if she did, boils would erupt on her face spelling out the word SNEAK. Lavender was a little bit afraid of Hermione in general, it seemed. As she should be.

So, Hermione split her time between classwork, Prefect duties, researching Horcruxes, watching Harry, and watching Snape. And after a while, she was pretty sure that at the very least, Harry and Snape had gone through something significant together. They looked at eachother. A lot. And not glaring. Not even staring, really. Just looking. From across the Great Hall, and across the grounds, and across the corridors. Looking at each other. 

And then there was the bracelet. She’d seen it a few times. It was suspicious, the way Harry lifted up his sleeve to look at it when he thought no one could see. With his eyes skipping around, almost like he was reading something. And then once - just once - she saw Snape lift up his sleeve, too, in the hallway. It was just for a moment, and though she could not see if he had on a bracelet, the gesture was so similar that she was sure that he must. And that meant something, even if she didn’t know what.

Harry had told her that Dumbledore was tutoring him at night. And maybe he was. But if he was, so was Snape. And Harry was looking at him. A lot. And Snape was looking back.

She decided she would give Harry one more chance to tell her the truth. And if he didn’t, she would have to go directly to Snape. She wasn’t afraid of him, not really, and certainly something was different between them, now. Something big. She hadn’t ever seen Harry look at anyone quite like he was looking at Snape. And Snape - well. His expressions were pretty hard to read. 

***

“Harry? Can I talk to you?” Hermione asked.

They were just leaving Charms, and, as usual, Ron had left with Lavender. He didn’t seem very happy with her at all these days, Harry thought, though he had worn the horrific gold _my sweetheart_ pendant at least once to please her. 

“What? Oh, sure,” Harry answered. “What’s up?”

“I thought we might,” she dropped her voice, and gave him a significant look. _“Speak privately.”_ Harry looked around at the other students filing out.

“Is it about… _you know what?”_ he asked. 

“C’mon,” Hermione answered, and led him out the door and down the corridor into an empty classroom. Inside, she pointed her wand at the entrance and cast _muffliato_. Harry grinned at her.

“Warming up to the Prince, are you?”

“It’s useful,” she answered, a little stiffly.

“So, anything new about Horcruxes?”

“No,” she began. “The only mention I’ve found of them, even in the restricted section, was in _Magick Moste Evile_ , and all it said was that Horcruxes were too _“evile”_ to be mentioned.”

“Wow. Too _evile_ for the _evile_ book? Must be pretty _evile_.”

“Must. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“No?” 

“No, I wanted to talk to you about Snape.”

Harry would not tell her. When she asked him again if something else had happened, he said no. When she asked him if he had anything he wanted to tell her, he said no. When she asked him if Snape had saved him at the Burrow, he said yes, and then said no, and then said he was pretty sure no one had saved him, they’d just been watching him until he woke up. And then she asked about who had gone to the Governors to report Snape for giving him sleeping potions, and he said Professor Lupin. And he hadn’t ever told her that bit of information before.

“Professor Lupin?” she asked, startled. “But - he was who threw a fit at Headquarters, wasn’t he? Ron told me. Before we - before school started.”

“Yeah, he was,” Harry said slowly. “He was still mad about that, I guess.”

“And he went to the Governors because he thought you’d tried to kill yourself with the potions Snape gave you.”

“I guess.”

“And that’s it?”

“He seemed to think it was a pretty good reason. Why are you asking about this again?”

“Well, you never told me.”

“Hermione. I _have_ told you. There isn’t anything else to tell. Snape had to go to the Governors, and I sent a statement with Dumbledore, and I didn’t see the hearing. Dumbledore just told me Snape got acquitted and that was all.” Hermione gave him a skeptical look. “What?”

“Is he still giving you Dreamless Sleep?”

Harry looked shiftily at his shoes. “Sometimes, yeah. Just one at a time, though. He’s still annoyed about that - other time.”

Ron said Harry had a case of it under his bed. Snape must have taken it away. And now he was sending up one at a time? How in the world could that possible work? 

“But, Harry,” she began. “How does he know if you need one?”

“How does he what?”

“How does he know if you need a Dreamless Sleep?”

“Oh. Usually I just … uh - send Dobby. Or Kreacher. You know. To ask him. They can apparate around the castle.”

“And then he just sends one up?”

“Yeah, usually.”

“That’s pretty nice of him.”

“Sometimes they have snide notes attached.” 

Hermione thought maybe he was trying to make a joke, but he looked really uncomfortable, so she let it go. If he really wouldn’t tell her, fine. It would be unkind to push too hard. So, instead, she laughed lightly, and let him leave, and then went to the library to think. 

In the quiet of the stacks of books, Hermione thought about Ron’s incredible fury in McGonagall’s office - cursing at Snape and getting in his face with no regard for the fact that he was a Professor, and one that used to be his most feared. She thought about Harry’s reaction to the shouting. She thought about Harry in Defense Against the Dark Arts, totally ignoring the assignment and just looking at Snape for an hour, and how, even when Harry was paying attention, he seemed more like a TA than a student. And Professor Snape seemed happy to tolerate that, even though she was quite sure that Harry would have been crushed beneath a year’s worth of detention for it in Potions. 

She thought about Harry isolating himself over the summer, refusing to answer her letters, and then being found in Snape’s rooms under such circumstances that Dumbledore had been called to break up a _fight._

She thought about Snape looking back at Harry from a hundred feet away, his expression inscrutable, and then imagined what she might think if it was another student looking at him like that. 

She thought about Harry appearing at breakfast, though she hadn’t seen him in the common room. 

And then she went to Snape’s office, and knocked on the door. 

***

“Enter.”

“Professor Snape?”

It was Hermione Granger. Severus looked at her in the doorway for a moment, before gesturing at the chair before his desk. It was office hours. No need to panic. Maybe she had an academic question. 

“How can I help you, Miss Granger?” he asked, once she’d sat down and set her bookbag on the floor.

“I want to talk to you about Harry,” she said. 

Well, maybe slight panic was warranted. 

His bracelet was silent, though. Surely no new crisis had occurred. He raised a delicate eyebrow at her. “Oh? Whatever for?”

She took a breath, seeming to steel herself, and Severus was immediately very sure that whatever she was about to say was going to be awful. Maybe she’d seen something. Or Harry had said something. Maybe Severus had been careless with his bruises.

“He’s been pretty different this year,” she began.

“Has he?” Severus answered. Hermione scowled at her own legs.

“I’ve tried to ask him, but he won’t tell me.” Severus stayed quiet. Why was she here, now, after all these weeks? Harry was doing better than anyone could have expected. So why, now? She must know something. Give her silence and draw her out. “Is he - ” she paused, and swallowed, and Severus saw color rise in her downturned face. And then a muscle in her jaw worked, and she looked up. “He’s obsessed with you,” she said. “I want to know why.”

_Oh, shit._

“Pardon me?” She did not speak. Harry had said something about this, before, hadn’t he? He’d said that it was good that Hermione Granger didn’t know if he was in his bed or not, because she would be harder to put off. “Miss Granger,” he said slowly. “What are you asking me?” 

Hermione’s mouth twisted up, and the gesture was so familiar that Severus was forced to remember that this girl was one of Harry’s best friends. He loved her, and she loved him, and, more than that - she _knew him._

“Do you really want me to ask?” she said. “Because I will.”

Severus just looked at her for a long moment, deliberating, and then pointed his wand at his door and warded it with a silencing charm. She glanced over at it, and then back at his face, her expression grave. 

“He looks at you all the time,” she said. “And I mean _all the time._ If you’re there, he’s looking at you. You must have noticed.”

“I have noticed,” Severus answered slowly, trying to think what angle would satisfy her. She was probably too smart to deflect, and certainly she loved Harry too much to be scared away. “I’ve been tutoring him, as I think you have guessed.”

“Wandless magic,” she said, and Severus nodded. “He told me it was Dumbledore.”

Severus shifted the potted cactus on his desk a little towards his cup of quills. He hadn’t killed it yet. It was still quite plump and green. “The Headmaster is supervising,” he said. “But the training can be very … hard on him.” 

“It’s not just that,” Hermione said. “I know it’s not.”

“Oh? And how can you tell?”

She _glared at him._

“I can tell.” Severus didn’t answer, and she didn’t say anything either, for a moment, like she was trying to draw _him_ out. “Listen, I know Harry,” she finally continued. “He’s my best friend, and I’ve been through a lot with him. We’ve been together since first year. And he’s acting different now, and I want you to tell me why.” 

“Do you? If you know him so well, maybe you should lend me _your_ expertise in interpreting his _gazes,”_ Severus said acidly. “If they are such cause for concern, perhaps you should tell _me_.” His scorn sounded pretty convincing, he thought, even though what he was really feeling was fear. 

She glared at him again. “You want my opinion?” she asked. “Fine.” She crossed her arms. “He loves you.”

“He _what?”_ Severus summoned all of his experience withholding emotion from the Dark Lord to put an appropriate expression on his face. “That is categorically absurd.”

“Don’t hurt him.” 

That was not what he’d expected her to say, and when she did say it, he knew at once that he’d failed. How was it, exactly, that Harry was able to strip him of his two most dependable talents? Lying, and terrifying students? It was like he was naked. He had to say _something_. 

“Miss Granger,” he began. “I was cleared by the Governors.” 

_Take that sentence and put it right back in your fucking mouth, Severus. That sounded like a confession you unforgivable DOLT._

“You’re an Occlumens, though, aren’t you?” 

_Well, we were due for a crisis, weren’t we? And here it is. This is Hermione Granger, and she knows Harry’s heart and soul, and she is the sharpest student in the school, and if she says that Harry is looking at you like he loves you it’s because he IS. If she isn’t on your side you’ll end up in a box and you’ll never touch Harry again. If she decides you’re lying that’s the end. Fix it. Make her trust you._

Severus covered his mouth with his hand, and then took it away.

Maybe he could handle her like he’d handled the Governors. Show her his heart, but only the top layer. The love. The protection. Not the … other things. That might appease her. Or at least - make her leave.

“Hermione,” he said, and her eyes went wide. “If you want the truth, I need you to promise me that you will not speak.”

“I won’t,” she whispered, sounding suddenly terrified. “I’m worried about him. He’s so - different.”

“Swear to me.”

“I swear.”

Severus looked out the window. “You want to know why Mister Potter is looking at me?” he asked, folding his hands. “Well. He’s been struggling. At Headquarters it became apparent to me that he would hurt himself if left alone. He wasn’t sleeping, and was behaving bizarrely. I, perhaps unwisely, took it upon myself to medicate him. To calm him down.”

“The Dreamless Sleep,” Hermione breathed.

“Yes,” Severus answered. “And more than that. He needed limits. I gave them to him.” He paused, and looked at the cactus, thinking. “He was afraid of me, and so he listened. I got him through some terrible nights.”

“He never answered any of my letters.”

“No, I wouldn’t have thought so. He didn’t want friendship - or - solace, or any comfort at all, back then.” Her expression shifted like the scales had just fallen from her eyes, and Severus was suddenly very concerned that he wouldn’t be able to control her conclusions. 

“He wanted _you,”_ she said.

“Yes,” Severus answered slowly.

“But Professor Lupin didn’t understand.”

“No. He didn’t. He thought that I was - taking advantage of him. Or, that I was manipulating him. He didn’t understand what it was that Harry needed.” _Potter. Say POTTER. Come on, focus._ “There was a fight, and he - I mean - Potter broke it up. He blasted us apart. And afterwards…”

“He was sick,” Hermione supplied.

“It wasn’t just sickness. He collapsed. He was bleeding from the eyes. It was on the very edge of fatal. We brought him here, the Headmaster and I, to the hospital wing, as you know. We stabilized him.”

“And Ron and I came to visit. And you were there. Protecting him.”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

_And then what? What a question. I gave in. I fucking folded._

_And I don’t regret it, either._

“He recovered from his injury but he wasn’t ready to return to the student body. He was paralyzed. Terrified to have everyone looking at him.”

“And you helped him.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. “He’s been sleeping in your quarters, hasn’t he?” Hermione asked, looking at her hands. “He comes to breakfast alone a lot.”

“Sometimes he does, yes. There is a room for him. Where he can have some… privacy.” 

“And then he went away for Christmas and he tried to kill himself.”

“No,” Severus answered. “Lupin surprised him, and then the Minister, and I gave him the letters - I assume he has shown them to you?” Hermione nodded. “It was too much all at once. He was confused. He didn’t know what to do.”

“And you weren’t there that time.”

“No. I wasn’t there.”

Hermione looked out the window as she digested this information. Neither of them spoke for a long while. “Does Dumbledore know all of this?” she asked, looking back at him. “I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t ask you. You could just lie. How would I know?”

“He knows,” Severus said. “Why do you think I still have a job?” She didn’t seem to like that answer very much.

“Do you think I don’t know the stakes?” she scoffed. “Come on.”

“My apologies for underestimating you. But Albus does know. He testified on our behalf.” _Our. Our? What are you trying to do? Ask her to be your maid of honor?_ “And as you say, the stakes are high.”

“I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he’s looking at you, Professor.”

Severus drummed his fingers on his desk. “I think I might be - ” he broke off, wondering what Harry had told her about his life before Hogwarts. He might not have told her very much at all, and if he hadn't, this might not make much sense to her. But he trusted her, didn’t he? Surely he had told her _something._ “I don’t think anyone has ever tried to take care of him before. He isn’t used to it.” The very corners of her lips turned down as if she was trying not to react, and Severus thought that maybe Harry had told her some things. Maybe he had told her, and she had tried not to react, then, too. To keep his confidence. “He didn’t like it at first. I think it frightened him. To be looked after.”

“But not now.”

“No. Not now.”

“He has - a bracelet,” Hermione said slowly. “He looks at it a lot when he thinks no one is watching.” 

Severus considered trying to pivot the conversation to something else. It didn’t seem worth it. Or, if he was honest, it didn’t seem possible. Hermione Granger had kept hundreds of Harry’s secrets already, hadn’t she? Maybe she would keep a few more. 

He laid his left arm on his desk and pulled back his sleeve. “Yes, he does,” he said, turning his wrist up so that the red ink of his mark was exposed along with the silver cuff. “And you must never speak of it.”

Hermione’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve trusted you since you kept Quirrell from knocking Harry off his broom,” she said quietly. “Don’t let me down, now.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Granger,” he said. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” she answered. “But there’s … something else, too.”

“And what is that?”

“What’s a horcrux?”

Oh, is that what she wanted? A trade?


	2. White Sparks

_[Why are you researching Horcruxes?]_

Harry looked down at his wrist and grimaced.

_What? Why are you asking that? Did Slughorn say something to you?_

_[Slughorn? No. Miss Granger accosted me in my office]_

_She didn’t._

_[She did. She seems to think that your soulful gazes at me are cause for concern]_

_I’m not gazing soulfully at you._

_[Apparently you are. Why Horcruxes?]_

Harry chewed a little on the end of his quill. _Can we talk about it tonight?_

_[Yes, alright. Eleven?]_

_***_

When Harry appeared at 11:01 that evening, Severus was sitting on the sofa with two tumblers of scotch, no ice.

“Oh,” Harry said, taking the glass he was offered and sitting down. “Bad day, huh?”

“I’m not in the habit of being interrogated by seventeen year old girls.”

“Oh, well, Hermione is hardly just a seventeen year old girl. Did you tell her everything? I nearly did. She surprised me, asking about you after so long.”

“No, I certainly did not. I am, as I’m sure you are aware, an expert at not ‘telling everything.’”

“She’s pretty compelling though, isn’t she?” Severus scowled into his drink. “You should tell me what you said to her, so I know what line we’re taking. If I say something that doesn’t match up she’ll notice.”

“How do you usually handle her?”

“Usually I don’t lie.”

“No? Does she know about the prophecy?” Harry glared at him. Everyone was _glaring at him_ these days. 

“Severus,” Harry said firmly. “She was _there_. She almost died in the Department of Mysteries. Of course she knows. She knows everything.”

“Not _everything.”_

Harry tossed back his whisky like it was water and then held out his glass. “I have never lied to them like this before, you know.” Severus gave him another pour.

“I know you haven’t,” he said. 

“What did you tell her?”

Severus swirled his scotch a little. “I told her that you’re dependent on me. Though not in so many words.”

“So, what, the truth?” Harry asked, sounding annoyed.

“Some of it. But…” Severus trailed off, thinking. “She seemed rather like she already knew.” Harry looked into his glass, long and hard, and pressed his lips together. 

“I think… maybe they both know,” he said after a moment. “I think they know, and I think Ron would like to crucify you, and that Hermione would like to ask you a lot more questions.”

“And then crucify me.”

“Depends on what your answers are, I suppose. If you really told the truth, absolutely. Draw and quarter you. Burn your remains. But they’re both too afraid to upset me, aren’t they?”

Severus drained his glass, too, and then filled it again from the bottle. “She asked about your bracelet. She’s seen you using it.”

“What?” Harry looked up. “I’ve been trying really hard to keep it hidden.”

“I know you have. But she gave me the impression that she’s been watching us both for some time. Since the meeting with Minerva, possibly. But you say she and Weasley are still not speaking?”

“No, Ron is still with Lavender. Hermione hates her.”

“Small miracles. I’d hate to have them compare notes.” Harry snorted. “We’ve lasted much longer than I thought we would, you know. We’ve gotten away with impossible things.”

“I’m Harry Potter,” Harry answered. “That’s what I do, isn’t it?”

That was what Severus was banking on, of course. Harry Potter, accomplisher of impossible things. Just a few more impossible things, and they’d be free, wouldn’t they? Just a miracle, or two, or ten more. And they’d be free.

“Why are you researching Horcruxes? And why would Slughorn have told me?” Severus asked. 

Harry turned away and pointed his finger at the hearth, lighting a fire. “It’s an assignment from Dumbledore. I’m not supposed to tell you. But…” He looked back at Severus and gave him an ironic smile. “It seems pretty stupid to keep secrets from you, after everything.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Severus held out his glass to cheers, and Harry obliged him. “But still, we obey the Headmaster.” _All the way to the grave._

“Yes we do,” Harry said. “And that’s why you won’t tell me what you’re doing, either.”

“True.”

There was a silence, and then Harry spoke. “So, what’s a Horcrux?”

“Why don’t you let Granger tell you. See how she approaches it. If she tells you she got the information from me, you’ll know that you can speak freely to her. If she tries to lie, you’ll know that you should lie, too.” 

Harry considered this. “Yeah, alright,” he said. “I’ll wait and see.” Then he stood up, and climbed into Severus’ lap. Severus sat back a little to allow it, putting his glass on the side table to free his hands. “Can I tell you something about Malfoy?”

“Malfoy?” Severus asked. “Are you in my lap so I don’t get angry?”

“Maybe,” Harry answered. “Can I tell you?”

Severus slid his hands around Harry’s sides to his hips and tugged him a little closer so that they were pressed together. “Go on, then. Enrage me. You know how much I like it when you cause trouble.”

“I heard Malfoy and Crabbe talking during Apparition Training,” Harry began, resting his hands on Severus’ shoulders. “Crabbe isn’t very happy with his assignment, I guess. Malfoy is making him act lookout, but won't tell him why. And he said that thing again - what he said at the Christmas party. _‘It’s taking longer than I thought it would.’”_ Severus had to try very hard to focus on what he was saying, as Harry squirmed in his lap and squeezed him with his knees. “That was what he said, wasn’t it?” he continued. “That it was taking longer than he expected.”

“Yes it was,” Severus answered. He’d have to tell Malfoy to keep his fucking mouth shut. Little bastard was still acting like this was a game. And nothing at all had happened since the necklace. Ominous. 

“Are you… watching him, or anything? It could be something really dangerous.” Severus took hold of Harry’s waist, pulling him down a little as he pressed up with his legs, and Harry’s eyes went unfocused. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” Severus answered, and did it again. “And, as I recall, you promised not to get involved in this.” 

“Did I?” Harry leaned forward and braced his hands on the back of the sofa behind Severus’ head. “I’m such a liar.”

“A despicable, filthy liar,” Severus agreed, and slid one hand into his hair to pull him closer. Harry’s lips parted, and Severus knew he wanted to be kissed, but did not kiss him. “Of course I’m watching him. Have a little faith.”

“I’ve got nothing but faith,” Harry breathed, trying to close the gap. Severus held him at bay with the grip on his hair, and then he tightened his fingers a bit more, until he heard Harry’s fingernails drag against the upholstery of the sofa behind him.

“And what are you in the mood for tonight, hmm?” Severus asked. “Not sleeping, I think.”

“No,” Harry answered. “Not sleeping.”

“Tell me.”

Harry opened his mouth to answer but all that came out was a little gasp as Severus’ other hand dug hard into his hip. “I think you already know,” he finally managed. “You’re - pressing all my buttons.” He was hard. Severus could feel it against his belly. And Severus was hard, too. Obviously.

“I want you to say it, though,” he whispered, brushing the very tip of his nose against the edge of Harry’s jaw, and pressing his thumb hard into the ridge of his hipbone. Harry’s inhale caught half way in his throat, and his hips twitched forward.

“Be rough with me,” he said. “Knock me around.”

“No specifics?”

“No.”

Severus tugged his head back a little further to look into his eyes. “No?” he asked. “I see. Show me your colors, then.” Harry held out his hand and a different color of sparks issued from each of his four fingers.

“Green, gold, red, purple,” he breathed. 

“What a good boy,” Severus answered, and dragged him to his feet by the hair. “You just want whatever I give you, is that it?” 

“Yes,” Harry gasped. “Yes, Sir.”

“I think I want you on your knees.”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said again. Severus walked him back towards the wall and then pushed him against it. 

“I’m not asking,” he growled. “Down.” Harry dropped to the floor, and then yelped as his head was knocked back against the wall.

“What color is that?” Severus asked.

“Green,” Harry answered, gazing up at him, excited, and afraid, and in love. And Severus could see it all in his eyes. It was like looking right into his soul.

Of course his friends _knew_. It was a miracle _everyone_ didn’t know.

“Good. Keep your head on the wall.” Severus took his glasses.

“Or what?” Harry asked. His voice was soft, and shallow, and he licked his lips as Severus started unbuckling his belt. 

“Or I’ll hit you. I think you didn’t mind it much, last time. Color?”

“Green. Green.” 

“Mm. Open your mouth.” Harry did, and Severus brushed his thumb gently across his bottom lip. “You’re so gorgeous,” he said, and Harry closed his eyes. “Especially like this. Give me your hand.” Harry raised his right arm and let Severus pin it to the wall beside his head. “I’ll be watching for your sparks.” And then Severus used his other hand to pull himself free from his underclothes. 

He allowed Harry just the tip for a while, and Harry did well keeping his head against the wall, using his tongue to get as much of Severus as he could. And then Severus gave him a little more, pressing into his mouth about half way, holding there for a moment, and then withdrawing. It took about three repetitions of this before Harry lifted his head to chase after him. And when he did that, Severus pushed him back, and slapped him. 

“Color,” he demanded, as Harry gasped in surprise and pain. Green sparks issued from the fingertips of his trapped hand. “Not too hard?” Harry shook his head _no_. “Good.” He pressed back in. Slow and steady this time, all the way until Harry made a little noise of protest, struggling to take it. Severus looked down at Harry’s free hand as it clenched into a fist in his lap, and then began fucking his mouth. Not hard, but thoroughly. And when he withdrew again, almost all the way, Harry lifted his head again, and Severus hit him again. And when he did, Harry seemed genuinely shocked. Like he’d forgotten. “Stay on the wall,” Severus growled, and Harry nodded, his lips glistening and his pupils huge.

“Sorry,” he breathed. 

It took about a minute for Harry to do it again. And when he did, it seemed very deliberate. He grabbed Severus’ leg with his free hand, and lifted his head off the wall to take him deeper. And that time, Severus released his wrist and slammed his head back, and when he slapped him, it was _hard_. Harder than he meant to, maybe.

“Color?” he gasped, as Harry panted, his head snapped to the side.

“Green.” 

“Not gold?”

“Green.”

“More of what? I won’t hit you any harder than that.”

“I want - ” Harry paused, and turned his head back to center, blinking up at him. “I want what you didn’t like, before. Don’t be mad.”

_Choke me with it._

“Deeper?” Severus asked. “Is that it?”

“Yeah. Deeper. As deep as I can take.”

Severus looked down at him and swallowed, bracing his hand against the wall. “There’s an easier way,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah?” Harry’s cheek was red, and so were his lips. Red, and swollen, and fucking perfect. “How?”

Severus helped him up from the floor, took him into the bedroom, and undressed them both. Then, he laid Harry on the bed, on his back, with his head off the edge of the mattress. Harry reached out for him almost at once. 

“Easier like this? On my back?” he asked.

“If you want deeper, yes.”

“All the way.”

“I don’t think you really appreciate what all the way means.”

“Teach me,” Harry said, dropping his head back and opening his mouth. Severus stood over him, looking down at the underside of his jaw, and his extended throat, and collarbones, and chest, and to his cock, hard against his belly.

“This is going to feel different,” he said.

“Good,” Harry whispered, tugging on him, and Severus pressed closer, and into his mouth. With his head hanging off the edge of the bed like that, his throat was straightened out, and Severus could easily push past the barrier of his palate. It was excruciatingly easy, really, to penetrate far deeper than was even possible with him on his knees. Deep enough, easily enough, that Harry couldn’t handle it all at once. He pushed back with his hands and coughed, like he had that first time, and swallowed hard, and, like that first time, he did not give up. Severus allowed him to direct it, following the pressure of his hands, more - deeper, and then less - less - LESS - and then more again. And oh, it was exquisite - sinking into his throat and feeling him struggle, and then giving him relief, too. Allowing him to suck in a single breath at a time, before choking it off. And finally, as Harry started to acclimate to it, he tugged hard, and Severus obeyed, and felt Harry take him all the way to the base. His throat spasmed, and Severus rested his hands on Harry’s chest, sliding them up towards his ribs, and then Harry pushed back again, hard, to choke and swallow. Because _that_ was deep. _That_ was all the way. And _that_ , it seemed, was just what he was after, because he pulled him back in with no hesitation.

“What an angel,” Severus murmured. “That’s it. Open up for me.” Harry’s toes flexed, and his legs drew up and then relaxed back like his body wanted to struggle but his brain didn’t. And then his hands dropped away from Severus’ legs, and to the bed, and Severus seized them, and pinned them down, taking away his ability to push back. 

“Color,” he breathed, and green sparks shot out of both of Harry’s hands held tight down to the sheets. Merlin, he liked that. Of course he did. “Oh, you like that, do you?” Green, again. “Mm. You just like to _take it._ ” Harry’s toes curled and his hands twitched, held fast in Severus’ grasp. His cock jumped, too, a bead of precome welling up at the tip. And oh, that was fucking _addictive._ “You just want to _please me_.” 

Severus began to thrust into his mouth, holding himself still for a fraction of a second as deep as he could get, before withdrawing, letting him inhale, and then doing it again. And Harry was so hard. Like he was about to burst, just like this. 

Severus squeezed his wrists, and pressed in savagely at the same moment, and then withdrew almost all the way, enjoying the feeling of Harry’s ragged inhale, and then his tongue moving against him as he swallowed. He withdrew a little more, to see what sort of sound he might make. And the sound he made was Severus’ name, curled around a desperate moan. Well, he didn’t get it all the way out, really. Severus cut it off pretty quickly.

“Quiet,” he growled. “Sparks only. What color?” Green again. _More_. He wrapped his fingers around Harry’s neck, and Harry’s freed hands dug into the sheets. “How about now?” he purred, and thrust in all the way, and stayed there. Harry’s heels drove into the mattress, pressing his hips up into the empty air. “Want me to touch you, don’t you?” Green sparks, with an interesting little crackle of bright white just at the tips. That wasn’t a signal they had discussed before, but Severus got the distinct impression that it was the sparks version of _please_. “Oh, are you begging? Go on. Beg.” Again, green, with the bright white crackle out of both hands, and Severus tightened his fingers, and leaned over to exhale over Harry’s cock. “Beg me, if you can.” His hips pressed up again, and he made the loudest noise he was capable of at that moment - hardly a squeak - and a weird combination of all four colors, with a white froth, issued from his fingertips. And that was begging, surely. 

“How precious,” Severus breathed, and released his neck to brace himself over Harry’s body, pressing his open mouth to his cock. Harry grabbed his legs and dug his fingers in, and his hips flexed up again, and Severus allowed it. Enjoyed it, really. His abandon. 

He began to pulse into Harry’s throat, slow and easy, and opened his mouth wider to suck him down. And Severus was close - _very_ close - to coming. But he imagined that feeling Harry get off like this would be a fucking _revelation_ , so he ruthlessly held it back, and began to work him in earnest, sucking, bobbing his head, moving his tongue, and humming low in his throat. He could feel Harry’s legs start to shake, and reached one hand behind them to press very lightly at the entrance to his body. And - oh _lord_ \- the taste of him _flooded_ Severus’ tongue. And he was right. The way Harry’s body curled up, and his fingernails dug in, and his throat tightened, yet he was _completely silent_ was absolutely _unbearable_ \- and Severus tipped over immediately, moaning around Harry’s cock as it began to soften in his mouth, thrusting hard into his throat and spilling, riding out the devastating waves of pleasure swamping him _._ And then, finally, remembering that Harry probably needed air, he withdrew with a gasp and staggered back. His knees felt like liquid, but he managed to stay on his feet just long enough to lift Harry’s head from where it was hanging off the edge of the bed, and drag him up onto the mattress and into his arms. 

Harry was panting, and dazed, and it took a moment for him to move at all. When he did, though, his hands came up to rest on Severus’ chest. “That…” he began slowly, and swallowed, turning his face into Severus’ shoulder. “That… was…”

He didn’t say anything else. Severus laughed gently, holding him a little closer as he felt his skin starting to cool, knowing he was about five seconds away from shivering. 

“You made a whole new color,” Severus said into his hair. And… he started to shiver. 

“W-w-what?” Harry wheezed, with a feeble little giggle. Severus summoned his wand to his hand. It took a moment - maybe he’d left it in the living room - and then conjured a fur throw and pulled it over them both. 

“Alright?” he asked.

“Ask l-later.”

“As you like.”

***

Severus did not ask until the morning. Until Harry was shoveling pancakes into his mouth at Severus’ dining table. It was Saturday, and Harry had Quidditch practice at eleven, but nothing until then.

“May I ask, now?” Severus began, casually stirring his tea like he didn’t care what the answer was. Harry tended more towards honesty when it seemed like Severus didn’t care.

“Ask what?”

“How are you feeling after last night?”

“My throat is sore.”

“I’m sure it is. And how was it for you?”

Harry swallowed his mouthful of food and scowled back at him. “How was it?” he repeated. “How can I say this? Hmm. That was so hot that I’m going to think about it in the shower for a thousand years. And I’m going to marry you, and take your name, and follow you around forever. How about that?” Severus almost spit out his tea. “AND I’m going to get, ‘Property of the Half Blood Prince,’ tattooed across my chest. Stupid fucking question.”

“Well,” Severus said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “That’s what the white meant, I suppose.” Harry was right, too. Those new sparks might have been the most scorching thing Severus had ever seen. Or maybe a close second to Harry lifting up onto his toes, naked, tied down to Severus’ bed. He thought about that a lot.

“The white what?”

“Your sparks had a white sparkle at the tips.”

“Did they?”

“Was that not deliberate?”

“Not as far as I’m aware,” Harry answered, gathering bits of pancake on his fork. “Must have gotten me pretty excited.”

“I must have done.” Severus thought about his toes flexing and curling under and looked into his cup. “You were pretty incoherent, afterwards.”

“Well, I saw the face of god. Sooooo…” Harry grinned and took one last swig of juice. “I should go. If we keep talking about this I’m going to want to go again and I’ll be late for practice.” He wiped his mouth and stood up, and then bent over a little to kiss Severus’ cheek. “Love you,” he said, and summoned his invisibility cloak. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Severus answered, and he disappeared. Then his head reappeared.

“Oh, one more thing,” he said, and gestured at the dining table. A dozen red roses appeared, set in water. “Happy Valentine’s day.” Harry grinned, and his head vanished, and then the door to Severus’ chambers opened and closed again.

Severus touched his cheek, staring at the flowers. 

_Property of the Boy Who Lived,_ he thought. 

And then he remembered that he’d meant to ask Harry how his breathing homework was going. He’d quite forgotten.

***

Hermione told Harry about Horcruxes in a series of low whispers as they sat together in the library. Harry was spending rather a lot of time with her in the library these days, as she refused to sit with him in the common room while Ron and Lavender were in there. Harry couldn’t really blame her - most of the Gryffindors were getting kind of annoyed with their incessant snogging. It was, as far as he was concerned, objectively too much snogging. So it wasn’t bad to get away from it, and the library was usually deserted in the evening, so he and Hermione could talk about Harry’s attempts to coerce the missing memory out of Slughorn. Or, rather, his _attempt_. He still hadn’t tried again. But at least now Hermione knew what Horcruxes were. And they were pretty terrible, as the author of _Magick Moste Evile_ had implied. 

“That’s awful,” Harry whispered. “Why would someone break off chunks of their own soul on _purpose?”_

“Well, it makes you immortal, doesn’t it?” 

“I dunno if that’s really immortality. More disfigurement. Or, like a doggy-bag for your leftover soul bits.” Hermione laughed quietly, looking at her parchment. “How did you find out?” She looked back up. 

“Professor Snape told me,” she said. “I went to his office.” She paused. “To ask about you.”

_If she tells the truth then you’ll know you can speak freely._

Harry gave her a small smile. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and pulled back his sleeve. “He told me.” Hermione looked at his wrist and then back at his face, astonished. “Seems like he trusts you. Or at least… he thinks you're too smart to swallow his lies.”

“Can I ask questions now?” she breathed. 

“Yeah, ok,” Harry answered, and Hermione cast _muffliato_ around their little table. 

“What are the bracelets for? I’ve been _dying.”_

“The bracelets? Well, they do a couple of things,” Harry began. “Mostly we use them to send messages. Want to see?” Hermione nodded mutely. “He might not answer right away if there are people around. I don’t need to speak out loud to do this, but he does.” He touched his fingertip to his bracelet and thought, _Hermione wants to see how the cuffs work. Can you?_

They waited, and, after a moment, his reply appeared in shimmering silver. 

_[Good evening, Ms. Granger]_

Hermione gasped. 

_[How is your essay on Inferi progressing?]_

“Merlin’s Pants,” she squeaked. 

_I think you freaked her out,_ Harry thought back, and pulled his sleeve back over the silver.

“Did you answer him?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, yeah, like I said, I don’t have to say stuff out loud. I just have to touch it, and think clearly, and it works.”

“How do you know if he’s trying to talk to you?”

“It kind of warms up. Like your charmed coins for the DA.” Hermione stared at his arm for a long moment. 

“That’s how you ask for Dreamless Sleep,” she said.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, and looked away. “Sorry for lying to you. It’s kind of a … secret.” 

“You said they do a couple of things. What else?” 

Harry stretched his arms over his head for a moment, thinking. Then he leaned forward onto his elbows.

“Well,” he said. “Dumbledore made them, and Snape told me they use a kind of elf-magic. So… the bracelets are linked, and whoever wears them can sort of… teleport together… from anywhere.” He stopped again, looked at Hermione’s expression, and then continued. “It’s for emergencies. Like if I get abducted again, or cornered, or something. If he calls me, and I accept, then I just disappear - _poof_ \- and reappear, wherever he is.” 

“Even inside the castle?” she asked.

“Yeah. And if I call him, he will appear, too.”

“Please don’t.”

“Ha! No, I don’t think he would like that. Like I said, it’s for emergencies.”

“Can I see it again?” Hermione asked, and Harry looked around to see that Madam Pince wasn’t sneaking up on them, and offered his arm. Hermione pushed back his sleeve and touched the silver surface lightly with one fingertip. It warmed up and she jerked her hand back. 

_[You aren’t going to ask me to appear, are you?]_

Harry let out a bark of laughter and then covered his mouth. 

_No,_ he sent back. _She didn’t want me to, don’t worry. We’re in the library._

_[Good. Because I will not]_

“Wow,” Hermione said. “That is amazing. No wonder you two are looking at each other all the time. You’re _talking_.” She gazed blankly at the stack of books on the table in front of her, visibly deep in thought. Harry covered his bracelet again, and waited. “Imagine how many problems this could have solved,” she said, after a moment. “You could have disappeared out of that graveyard before Wormtail could take your blood. Snape could have shown up at the Ministry to help us. Well, maybe not that, I suppose. But you could have told him about the Deatheaters and the Order would have come so much faster.” She looked back at Harry’s eyes. “He could have saved you so many times.”

“He came when the Minister cornered me at the Burrow. It was pretty fantastic. Scared him right off. You should have seen Scrimgeour’s face. The bastard.”

“I can imagine. Not a very pleasant thought, Snape appearing out of thin air.”

Harry shrugged. His bracelet warmed up again and he peaked down at it to read, _[Alright?]_ Harry sent back, _yeah._

“So. You’re friends,” Hermione said, after a moment.

“Sort of,” Harry answered. “He’s my teacher, and my friend, and, well, my protector, I guess. Or at least that’s what he wants to be. I think he’s worried it won’t be enough.”

“But he’s still a _spy_ , isn’t he? What does he do with the bracelet if he gets called by _You Know Who?”_

Harry frowned. “He takes it off,” he said. “He’s done it twice. I didn’t like it very much at all. Actually, wait. He’s taken it off three times. When he went to the hearing he gave it to me. But after that, he said he’d never take it off again.”

“That’s kind of sweet,” Hermione answered. Harry chuckled.

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Oh, _please_ don’t.” 

***

_[You’re really good at convincing people of things]_

Severus read that and snorted.

“That’s my entire job,” he said.

_[No, your job is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Lying is your calling]_

“My calling is making you beg for mercy, Potter.”

_[Oh, are you in the mood to call me Potter?]_

“Yes I am. Are you in the mood to beg for mercy?”

_[When am I not? Gonna chimera me, or what?]_

Severus summoned him, and pinned him to the floor, and called him Potter. And Harry begged for mercy. Begging for mercy was fun, these days. Because as long as his color was green, Harry could cry and beg and plead and struggle as much as he wanted, and Severus wouldn’t stop. And that… was what he’d wanted the whole time, really. To feel powerless, and safe, both at once. 

Harry fell asleep after, draped right across Severus’ chest like a ragdoll. But he didn’t stay asleep for very long. After a few minutes, just when Severus was considering waking him up to go to bed, he stretched luxuriously, and turned his face into Severus’ neck.

“I love you,” he murmured. 

“And I love you,” Severus answered. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Harry said, and yawned. “You always make me feel so good.”

Severus slid one hand into his hair.

 _Love him enough, teach him enough, make him strong enough, and maybe it will be enough_. 

That was Severus’ mantra, now. Love him, teach him, strengthen him, save him. Over and over again, in his mind. Like a wish, or a prayer: _Love him. Teach him. Strengthen him. Save him._ Over and over and over. It was the loudest at night, when Harry was asleep beside him. Intrusive, sometimes. Keeping him awake. 

_SAVE HIM._

In the daytime it was a little easier, when Severus could actually work on one of those things, instead of just obsessing silently in his bed. Loving him was easy, and teaching him was easy, too. And now his friends were taken care of, and he was sleeping, and eating. His magic was strong, and his moods were less volatile. So, what next?

Prevention, maybe. Coping mechanisms for the future. For when things went south, as surely they would. That would have to be next. Make him so strong that he didn’t need anyone at all. Self-contained, like an island. Untouchable.

Like Severus. 

Or, like Severus had been, before.

In the morning, maybe. For now, he had to get Harry up off the ground. They couldn’t spend the night on the floor, after all. Or, at least, Severus certainly didn’t want to.

“Up,” he said, coaxing Harry off of him. “Come on, Harry. Time to get ready for bed.”


	3. The Field

“And how have your breathing exercises been going?” Severus asked. It was late afternoon, on a frigid, rainy Sunday at the end of February. Severus was sitting on the couch, and Harry was sitting on the floor, leaning back against his legs. He had his Transfiguration text open on his lap, but Severus was pretty sure he was dozing.

“Hmm?” Harry asked vaguely. “My breathing thing? It’s ok.”

“Have you been practicing?”

“Yep. Every night, pretty much. I always do what you tell me.”

Severus scoffed. “Well. How is it agreeing with you? You haven’t asked for a Dreamless Sleep in almost two weeks.” Twelve days, in fact. Severus was keeping track.

“It’s fine. Sometimes I have to go through it more than once, though. If I wake up or, you know, have a nightmare.”

“Well, if it’s working that well for you, I’d like to try something new with you today.”

“A magic thing? Or a colors thing?”

“Neither,” Severus answered. There was a magical element, he supposed, but the hard part was the focus. Harry turned a little to look at him with a question in his eyes. “You’ve been doing rather well,” Severus continued. “No panic attacks.” Not since that first day of the semester. His improvement was so marked that Severus thought there might never be a better time to really challenge him. The longer they waited, the more likely it would be for something to reset him back to square one. Some tragedy, even if it wasn’t Severus’ fault.

“Yeah. Nothing much panic-worthy has been happening,” Harry answered lightly. “Not since Hermione decided that our love is pure and innocent.”

“How sweet.”

“She said that, too.” Harry grinned.

“Well. Setting aside your friends’ opinions of me, there is something I want you to learn. Are you familiar with hypnosis at all?”

“Hypnosis?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. “Isn’t that like… a muggle magician thing?”

“No. Well, I suppose muggles might practice a feebler version. This is no party trick, though. It is a powerful method of self-soothing that I used to great effect in my youth.”

“Your _youth,”_ Harry scoffed. “How old are you now? Thirty six?”

“Thirty seven,” Severus answered. Harry rolled his eyes. “Pay attention, now. When I first came to Dumbledore after the murder of your parents and began my work for the order, the pressure was immense. I had a very hard time withholding my emotions. Occluding my thoughts from the Dark Lord was so difficult that it regularly made me physically ill. Once I left his side, I would collapse from the strain.”

“So, what, this hypnosis thing helped you?”

“Yes. It saved me, I’m quite sure.”

Harry turned a little further, to fold his arms over Severus’ legs, and rest his chin on them. “Sounds hard.”

“It is. But I think that it is in the same vein as the magic that comes so easily to you.”

“So you think I can learn to calm myself down with it?”

“Yes, I do.”

Harry searched his eyes. “Why do I need to learn to calm myself down?”

Severus reached out to brush a lock of hair behind Harry’s ear, and Harry closed his eyes, but then opened them again, and frowned. He looked like he knew Severus was trying to deflect his attention, and Severus was trying to do that, so he stopped. 

“In the event that I cannot get to you.” 

“But… if I need you, I can call you, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Severus answered. “But we must always plan for the worst.” 

Harry’s expression shifted very slightly, and Severus rather wished he’d tried harder to redirect him. “I don’t really like the way you said that,” he said slowly.

“You’ll have to return to your Summer home eventually, won’t you?” Severus continued, squashing the little burst of fear that always appeared when Harry pointed his intuition at him. “At least for a few weeks. What will you do if you have an attack, there? I’ll hardly appear unannounced in some muggle’s living room.” Harry smiled a little at the thought, and then, after a moment, his smile twisted up into a wicked grin. If he was thinking something that put an expression like that on his face, Severus could probably relax. He’d distracted himself.

“Oh, I dunno,” Harry said. “You could make Dudley wet himself, and then fuck me in my childhood bed. It’d be fun.”

“That’s despicable,” Severus said. Harry laughed at him. “I’d obviously take you to a hotel.”

“No cupboard under the stairs for you, huh?” He laughed again.

“Certainly not. And no more of that for you, either.”

“How’s your house? Is it big?”

“Spinner’s end? Not terribly, no. I don’t think you’d like it. But we won’t ever live there, will we?”

“Nope,” Harry said. “Not us.”

“Nothing but the best for you, Potter. Now. If you will do me the honor of focusing for a moment, it would greatly please me.” He brushed his fingertips across Harry’s cheek. “And if you find this too difficult, we can stop, and try again another day. Fair?”

“Yeah, ok,” Harry answered. “But if it’s anything like Occlumency I’m going to fail miserably so be prepared for that.” 

It was a little like Occlumency, Severus supposed. But he didn’t think Harry would fail. Not now. He’d probably be able to learn Occlumency without much trouble now, too. In this golden, narrow window of trust, Severus could probably teach him anything.

“Very good. Come sit up on the sofa.” Harry did, and tucked his legs underneath him, looking nervous. “I will guide you today, but in time, you will not need to be lead. Close your eyes.” Harry did, and Severus watched him for a moment, synchronizing their breathing. Harry _was_ nervous. Severus could feel it in his own body as he matched up with him. It wasn’t fear, though. Not really… or, if it was, it was fear of failing. And he wouldn’t fail. “Are you ready?”

“I guess,” Harry whispered.

“Good. Now, begin by noticing your breath. Do not try to change it, but just feel it. Each inhale, and exhale, as it moves through your body. Just witnessing it.” He waited. “Now, very slowly, begin to draw each inhale deeper into your belly, allowing your ribcage to expand, and your collarbones to spread. Good.” Severus could see it clearly as he obeyed - he was still so slight that his ribs were quite visible underneath his shirt as he breathed in. It reminded him of how Harry sometimes arched back when he was touched just right, and he shook his head a little to clear it of the image. How could he expect Harry to focus, if he couldn’t even manage it? “And as you exhale, contracting, pulling your navel in, and letting your chest fall. Yes. Now, continue that breath, and without trying for any number, see how many seconds each inhale, and exhale takes. As you inhale - expanding, and as you exhale - contracting. Just like a bellows. Very good.” 

Severus counted for him, matching him again. He was at about a four - seven count. He was starting to relax, now, here with him in the dungeons. 

“Now, turn your attention inwards to your heartbeat. Focus on it. Feel it as specifically as you can. Feel the pulse in your fingertips and in your toes. See how it begins to slow, as your breath has slowed.” Harry’s chin dipped a little towards his chest, and Severus counted again. Five second inhale, eight second exhale. He was doing better than expected. He must really be practicing every night, as he said he was. “Yes, that’s it. Now, counting backwards from ten, begin to scan up your body. Ten, relaxing your feet, and legs. Nine, your belly and back. Eight, releasing tension from your ribcage, and chest. Seven, from your shoulders. Six, relaxing your arms. Five, your hands and fingers. Four, your collarbones. Three, relaxing your throat. Two, your jaw and temples. One, between your eyes.” Harry’s breath was so slow that he was almost to an eight-ten count, and Severus wished he could take his pulse without startling him, but he knew he couldn’t, so he stayed still. 

He’d only been planning on doing a little, today - just the progressive relaxation - but Harry was already so deep it seemed a shame to waste it. 

“Very good, Harry,” he continued, after a moment more. “Very good. Now, as you feel your breath, and your heartbeat, find your magic. Just like the vital workings of your physical self, so too are there veins of magic throughout your whole body. Visualize them. The threads of your power, following the lines of your bones, and your blood vessels, and your nerves - a bright, white light.” He could see Harry’s eyes moving behind his eyelids. “With each beat of your heart, the light pulses, too. Vibrant, luminous. Your magic, visible in the pores of your skin. Now, with your inhale, see how your magic pulls in with your breath. But as you exhale, it does not withdraw. It concentrates inward towards your spine. Coalescing with each inhale, brighter, and denser, and warmer.”

There did seem to be a little glow about him, now. But that was just Severus’ imagination. Harry always looked like that, to him. Radiant, and lovely.

“Now,” he continued, his voice low. “With your power pulled in, we are going to go somewhere else. Inside your magic. Inside the light.” He paused. “Turning towards the brightest place, passing through it, you find yourself in an open field. Tall grass, and clover, and wildflowers. It’s springtime. The sun is on your face, and the breeze is gentle and cool. You are the keeper of the land. The ground is yours. The sunlight is yours. The peace is yours. You created it. Looking around you, there is no one at all. Just the wide-open sky, and the space, and the silence. Safe, and calm, and empty.” There was a tiny movement, then, yet Harry had not moved. It was a butterfly - the shadow of one, anyway - opening and closing its wings on Harry’s shoulder. Severus stared at it. That was probably enough, for now. Now that he’d unconsciously summoned a _ghost butterfly._ Time to bring him out. “And now, counting up from one, starting from your head. When you reach your toes, your eyes will open.” He counted up, slow and steady, moving from the crown of Harry’s head, all the way down through his body to his feet. And then, finally, “ten.” 

Harry’s eyes opened, and the butterfly vanished. And then Harry had two very opposing reactions, one right after the other. 

“Color?” Severus asked. 

“Green,” Harry whispered. Severus could see that his eyes were far away. “Wow…that was…” He trailed off, and then, blinking, looked around, and jumped to his feet. “Wait, purple. No. _Red_. What the _fuck_. What the fuck was that? Where did you send me?” Severus stood up, too, and held out his hands, alarmed by his sudden agitation. 

“I didn’t send you anywhere,” he said. “I hypnotized you, like I said I would. You were right here.”

“Oh, god,” Harry moaned. “I’m at Hogwarts.”

“Yes. You’re at Hogwarts. You’re right here, with me.” But then Harry clutched his hair, and Severus realized that he did _not_ want to be at Hogwarts. But where else could he possibly want to be? 

Oh.

What a mistake.

 _Somewhere safe, and calm. An open field. Peace, and silence, and no one around as far as the eye can see. Flowers, and grass, and the wide-open sky._

He’d put Harry into a hypnotic state, brought him to their fantasy of serenity after the war, and then dragged him right back to Hogwarts with no warning. To the _dungeons._

“What did you do to me?” Harry whispered. “What did you _do?”_ Severus reached out for him but he recoiled, the hands in his hair turning into fists. “Wait. Just WAIT. _Don’t touch me.”_

“Alright,” Severus answered, “I’m sorry.” He stayed very still, watching as Harry dropped to the floor and put his head between his knees. It hurt, watching him do that, but Harry had told him to wait, so he waited. And, watching him, Severus could see that the breathing exercises really were helping, at least a little, because after a few moments, he controlled himself, and turned to look at him. His eyes were quite dry.

“What the _fuck,”_ he said again. 

“I’m sorry,” Severus repeated. “I didn’t intend - I didn’t expect it to be emotional for you.”

 _“Emotional,”_ Harry spat back. “Do you have any idea what you just did to me? Jesus.” He stood up and shook out his arms like there was something disgusting on them. “That was _mean._ That was - _our_ \- That was - our - _place.”_

“Harry.” Severus kept his voice soft, hoping to mollify him, hoping to make him listen. “I only said a field. I didn’t mean - ”

“Oh, you didn’t mean _that_ field?” He held up his hands as Severus approached him. “Stop. I need to take a walk.”

“Wait a minute, please. Just - sit back down.”

“No. I need to take a walk.” Severus tried to touch him again but then stopped as a red crackle shimmered into life around his outstretched hands. It seemed involuntary. “Hey - red,” Harry said. “I said red.” 

He didn’t sound upset, really. Just… firm. If he’d been yelling, or crying, Severus might have tried to keep him. But he wasn’t. He was calm. He just wanted space. And that was fair, wasn’t it? He deserved some space after whatever had just happened to him. And red meant stop.

“Alright.” Severus dropped his hands. “You can go, if you need to.”

Harry rubbed his eyes hard under his glasses. “Yeah. I do. I’ll come back - later. Bye.” He had his cloak with him, as usual, and he summoned it, pulled it over his head, and vanished. 

Severus sat back down once the door had closed, wondering if he’d done that on purpose. Why had he said a field? He’d figured that Harry liked plants, he supposed. That they relaxed him. He hadn’t thought of their little imaginary cottage in the country. Or, at least, if he had thought of it, it hadn’t been conscious. He should have said a forest or a stream or… something else. He should have thought harder about what it would feel like for Harry to go somewhere like that when he couldn’t stay. It had been cruel, really, pulling him back out like that. Ripping him away from his freedom, even if it hadn't been real. 

He should have thought.

Harry was gone for forty-five minutes, during which time Severus sat waiting for him, becoming increasingly concerned. What if he decided to do something reckless? He’d been pretty calm when he left, but what if he didn’t _stay_ calm? Severus didn’t even know where he’d gone. Last time he’d stormed out of the dungeons he’d met Malfoy almost immediately. What if that happened again? Or what if he - 

_[Can I come back?]_

“Yes,” Severus answered, relief flooding him. _“Chimera.”_ But then Harry appeared splattered with mud and absolutely sopping wet, and his relief vanished. “Merlin, did you go out into the grounds?” Severus jumped up and took his hands. He was shivering, and his nailbeds were blue. _“Harry.”_

“I’m f-fine,” Harry answered, pulling his hands away. “There were p-people all over the c-castle. I w-went outs-s-ide.”

It was probably 5°C outside. And he was wearing a t-shirt. A drenched one.

“Are you trying to make yourself sick? Lord in heaven. Get in the shower.” Severus didn’t give him any opportunity to protest, just dragged him into the bathroom, turned on the water, and started stripping off his wet clothes. He was getting mud all over the tiles, but he didn’t care. He’d clean it later. “In,” he commanded, pushing Harry into the steam.

“Ow, fuck, that’s too hot,” he complained, flinching back as Severus got in after him. 

“It's not too hot. It’s fine. You just went on a bloody arctic adventure, didn’t you?” Severus wrapped his arms around him, holding him still. 

“Hey - that hurts - ” Harry started to struggle, but Severus just squeezed him.

“Hold still,” he said. “Harry. Stop that.” He didn’t stop, so Severus grabbed the back of his hair. _“Stop it.”_ That worked. Harry froze, and then, after a moment, wilted.

“Sorry,” he whispered. 

“It’s alright,” Severus answered, releasing his hair and wrapping both arms around him. “Just stay still and let me warm you up.” He did stay still, and Severus held him as the water poured over them both until he stopped shivering. And then kept holding him until he relaxed back, and his skin turned pink, and he said sorry again.

Severus left him to change into clean clothes, sent for hot tea from the kitchens, and cleaned up the mess. And then he poured himself three fingers of scotch, neat, as was his habit these days, and sat on the sofa to wait.

When Harry came out, clean and dry, he was still quite pink, and Severus had the brief but very strong thought that Harry Potter was actually the most beautiful person Severus had ever seen in his life. He almost said it, too, but thought he might not like to hear it just then. So, instead, he offered him a mug of steaming tea, and then, at Harry’s request, tipped some scotch into it, too. 

Harry sat down opposite him, blew on his tea, took a sip, and looked at his bare feet.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Severus asked. “I think maybe you should.”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” Harry answered. “But I do want to try again.”

“You what?” He was absolutely impossible to predict. “What makes you think I’ll do that to you again after how you reacted?”

Harry took another small sip, and held his mug in both hands. “I was just surprised, that’s all. To come out so - suddenly. And… you said it would help me, and I think you’re right. I liked it, really. It was…” he trailed off, searching for the right words. “It was … beautiful.”

“Peaceful,” Severus offered. 

“Yeah. Peaceful. And that’s the point, right? You want me to learn to go there by myself. If you’re ever not there when - I’m - upset.”

“Yes, that is the point.”

Harry sighed and looked into the middle distance. “It was really real,” he said. “Like apparition, almost. Or the bracelets. Like I just appeared there, wherever _there_ was. Do you think it was a real place?” He looked hopeful, and that made Severus feel sick.

“No,” he answered. “It was just in your mind. But there are places like it, I’m sure.” 

“It was lovely. Like a paradise.”

“It was meant to be.” 

“Where do you go, when you do that?”

Severus considered answering. Back in his youth he’d just gone into the void. Just an empty, black space. No stimulation. No nature. No beauty. Nothing that could reveal anything at all to anyone who might stumble upon his memories of it. Just black - but quiet. No noise. No lies. Nothing.

“I haven’t practiced in years and years,” he finally said, and Harry glanced up at him and then away, like he knew Severus didn’t want to say.

Severus didn’t put him back under that day, but he did do it the next day. Harry went down even more easily that time, and Severus kept him down for over ten minutes, and when he brought him back out he seemed alright. A little distracted, maybe, but no rage, or crying, or anything like that. And afterwards, he gave Harry some instructions for practicing the progressive relaxation they’d begun with, and then, a few days later, once Harry had shown him what he’d learned, gave him the instructions for self-hypnosis. 

In the days that passed, Severus could tell that he was practicing a lot. Severus saw him doing it in the back of Defense class, sometimes - his eyes closed and his hands resting curled in his lap. And when they were separated, at night, sometimes _[I’m going into my magic, now. No messages]_ would appear, and Severus would leave him alone until he was through. 

He was pleased that Harry was picking it up so quickly. Funny to think how easily he would have learned Occlumency if he’d been like this back in fifth year. If Severus had been trustworthy, then. Or, he supposed, if he had _seemed_ trustworthy. They might have avoided so much pain. And if Harry sometimes didn’t speak at all after “going into his magic,” that was alright. If he liked it, good. Severus had liked it, too. He’d spent hours in the empty darkness those first few years. In the silence. And after a while, he’d learned to carry that calm emptiness with him during the day, and he’d stopped getting so sick after meeting with the Dark Lord. And Harry would learn to carry it with him, too, when he was ready. Maybe in a few weeks, if everything went smoothly.

But things didn’t go smoothly. They went rather sideways. 

Right off the rails, really.

***

Harry should have thrown away the chocolate cauldrons Romilda Vane gave him. He should have thrown them away as soon as he’d gotten them, knowing they were spiked with love potion. And then, when Ron ate them, Harry should have gone straight to Severus. But he’d thought it would be a good idea to go to Slughorn instead, hoping that maybe once he’d cured Ron of his affliction, Harry would have an opportunity to pry the memory out of him. Well, he’d been wrong, hadn’t he? He’d been so incredibly wrong on all counts that Ron almost died, right there, on the floor in Slughorn's office.

“So, all in all, not one of Ron’s better birthdays?” Fred asked. It was evening in the hospital wing - quiet, and dimly lit. Ron was the only patient, and Harry, Hermione, and Ginny had waited all day outside the double doors, begging to be let inside whenever Madam Pomfrey was within earshot. The Healing Matron had finally relented at eight o’clock, and Fred and George arrived shortly after. 

“How exactly did it happen, Harry?” George asked, and Harry braced himself to tell it again. He’d already told the story what felt like a hundred times. To Dumbledore, to McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey, Hermione, Ginny, and now Fred and George. Not Severus, though. Harry got the impression that he’d asked Dumbledore, instead. 

He told them how Ron accidentally ate a bunch of love potion past it’s date, and Harry took him to Slughorn, and Slughorn cleared him right up, and then offered to toast his birthday, but that the Mead had been poisoned. He told them how Ron started to seize, and foamed at the mouth, and how Harry found the bezoar he’d given Slughorn during potions to try to impress him, and forced it between Ron’s teeth. 

Harry had gotten a little dizzy the first few times he told that story, but now he just felt cold. He wasn’t sure if that was better, or worse.

“Blimey,” George began in a low voice. “Lucky you thought of a Bezoar.”

“Lucky there was one in the room,” Harry answered, shivering at the thought of what would have happened if he hadn’t been able to find one. Or if he hadn’t been given Severus’ old book at the beginning of the year. Or if he hadn’t remembered it. And then, suddenly, he felt hot with shame. If he hadn’t taken Ron to Slughorn in the first place, he would never have drunk the blasted poison at all. 

If, if, if.

Harry stayed quiet as the others speculated wildly around him. He just stood there, looking at Ron and brooding over his own stupidity, as they threw progressively more unlikely theories back and forth. Had the poison been meant for Harry, for Slughorn himself, or for Dumbledore? Or someone else? Was Slughorn a Deatheater, or under the imperius curse, or just an idiot? Could it be a grudge against the Gryffindor Quidditch team? Could it have been an accident?

Harry had a different idea, though. He remembered what Malfoy said outside the Christmas Party, and during Apparition training, and the way he’d been looking so unwell all year. Both the necklace and this new poison attack had the hallmarks of incompetence, didn’t they? Sloppy. Like something someone desperate might try to do. Someone that looked even more sick than Harry did. Someone like Malfoy, who had shouted at Severus like there was a gun in his back. Like he’d been sent to Hogwarts to do something impossible. And who at Hogwarts was impossible to kill? 

Not Harry. 

The five of them were broken up by the arrival of Hagrid, and then Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. And when they saw Harry, there was a scene _._ Mr. Weasley hugged him tight, and Mrs. Weasley burst into tears, and they both overflowed with gratitude, telling Harry that he had saved Ginny, and Mr. Weasley, and now Ron, and that he was a blessing, and a miracle, and that they loved him and owed him everything. 

Harry, feeling sick, wanted to point out that Ginny had been possessed by Voldemort because of _him,_ and that Mr. Weasley had been bitten by Nagini because of _him,_ and that Ron had been poisoned because of _him,_ and that he was obviously a fucking plague on their family, but he didn’t say any of that. He’d be able to escape soon. He just had to make it through a few more minutes of this torture, and then he could go down to the dungeons, and Severus could make him stop thinking. He just needed to get to the dungeons, and he’d be fine. 

He finally got his chance when Madam Pomfrey reminded them all that the limit for visitors was six, and Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid left Ron with his family. Up in the common room, though, Hermione took hold of his arm to keep him from bolting up the boy’s staircase.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.” She gave him a look.

“Don’t _lie.”_

“Are _you_ ok?” Harry asked back. She was still quite white, as she had been since she pelted up to the hospital wing that morning to demand what had happened to Ron. Harry thought he probably looked about the same. “Neither of us is ok. How could we be? Go to sleep.” 

“Are you going to the dungeons?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “I am.” 

She hesitated, and Harry braced himself for an argument, but in the end she just nodded, and let him go. And then fucking McLaggen popped out of nowhere and demanded to take Ron’s place as Keeper, and Harry almost punched him right in the face. How dare this big oaf ask that, now? The very same day? What a _cunt_. 


	4. Count

_[Call me. Call me.]_ appeared on Severus’ wrist at about half-past ten that night. He’d been expecting it, after Ronald Weasley’s close call with death. He was expecting Harry to be upset, too, and he was. He was almost coming out of his skin.

“Distract me,” Harry said when he appeared, climbing into Severus’ lap on the sofa. “I almost killed him. Make me stop thinking. Make me _stop.”_

“I can put you under,” Severus answered, holding him back a little with a hand on his chest. “This is what it’s for. Let me guide you down. Let me -” Harry kissed him savagely, cutting him off.

“No - ” he gasped, pulling Severus’ hand out of the way to press closer. “No - I can’t do that right now. I need _you_. I need you to - fix it. Fix me.”

 _Fix me._ That was what he’d said after the Minister cornered him.And Severus had fixed him right up, hadn’t he? Shocked his system into a hard reset. He wondered if Harry might have been alright if he hadn’t given him the letters and then left him alone to implode. Maybe he would have been fine if Severus had stayed. Well, Severus wouldn’t leave him alone tonight, that was for sure. No matter what happened.

“Colors,” he said. 

“No colors,” Harry demanded. “Just - punish me. I almost _killed him._ I’m so fucking _stupid-”_ Severus grabbed his hair and dragged his head back.

“I won’t lay a finger on you without the colors,” he said, and Harry let out a groan of frustration, resisting against his grip. Severus’ tightened his fingers, holding him still. “COLORS, Potter. Or you get _nothing._ You know the rules.” Harry raised his hand and sparks burst out of his fingertips. Severus watched him do it, thinking that he hadn’t seen Harry quite this upset in a while. “Fine. You want the switch?” 

“No. I need - more than that.”

“More?” Severus’ fingers were still twisted into a fist against Harry’s scalp, and Harry pulled savagely against them until Severus let him go, afraid he was going to rip out his own hair. “Harry, Merlin, don’t.” He grabbed him again, this time by the neck, and he went still. 

“I need something worse,” he repeated. “Whatever’s worse than the switch, that’s what I want.” 

_Well. That’s not good, is it?_

“You want me to abuse you for what happened to your friend, is that it? You want me to punish you for something you didn’t do?”

“Stop asking me questions and _hurt me.”_

Severus tightened his fingers. “I won’t,” he said.

“I’ll do it myself,” Harry countered. “I deserve it. It was my fucking poisoned chocolate that he ate, and _I_ took him to Slughorn and he - almost - ” He broke off suddenly. “Either you do it, or I will. I’m not going to take no for an answer.” Severus looked into his eyes, and knew that he was telling the truth. He wanted to be _tortured_ for what had happened today. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Severus said, and Harry jerked his head back to dislodge the hand around his neck.

“I don’t want to fucking hear that,” he snarled. “HURT ME.” Severus seized the front of his robes - he was still in his uniform - and yanked him back in. 

“You listen to me, you little madman. I do what I want with you.” He shook him, hard, just once, and Harry’s eyes went wide. “And I forbade you from hurting yourself, didn’t I? I think you remember. You _swore.”_ Severus paused for breath and suddenly realized that he was furious. Absolutely enraged _._ But it wasn’t Harry he was angry with, it was _Draco._ Because Draco was surely responsible for this, as he had been for the necklace, and Severus wanted to break his neck for it. Wanted to put him in a coffin for doing this to Harry. And, he realized, looking at the expression on Harry’s face, that Harry could see that hatred in his eyes, but not the target. Harry could see his rage, but not who it was directed towards. And, in seeing it, he was afraid.

Severus blinked. Maybe he could use that fear. Maybe he could terrify Harry into accepting something less than grievous injury. Because that was what he was asking for, and Severus would not give him that. Scare him enough, and that might be enough.

He let his fury show, unshielded. 

“Submit,” he growled, curling his hand back around Harry’s throat and pressing his fingertips in. “Submit to me.”

“I submit,” Harry squeaked. 

“Try again,” Severus breathed, giving him a little more pressure, digging his thumb up under the edge of his jaw. “You can do better.”

“Sir,” he gasped. “Sir. I’m sorry. I take it back. I won’t do - anything. I submit. I submit.”

He thought Severus was angry enough to really do him damage, and that was what he wanted, so he was folding. Possibly he thought that the more frightened he seemed, the harder Severus would go on him. Or maybe Severus was overthinking it, and Harry was just suffering and seeking relief. It didn’t matter which was true. Because either way, Severus wasn’t going to hurt him. There had to be something else that would do the job. Something dangerous enough to satisfy him, but that could be controlled. Something that would shock him, but not really hurt him. Something that would … make him stop thinking. That was what he’d said first, wasn’t it? Not _hurt me,_ but _make me stop thinking._ That was what he’d said _first_. 

And Severus could do that, couldn’t he?

He could turn Harry right off.

“Better.” Severus pulled him to his feet and into the bedroom by the hold on his throat. “You want something really dangerous, do you? You want something that could really hurt you?” 

“Yes,” Harry whispered. “Please. Please.” Severus tossed him onto the bed, and he gasped in fear, but then started madly stripping off his own clothes and tossing them out of the way. Watching him do that, Severus felt a little sick to realize how much he still wanted him, even when he was like this. Severus wanted him all the time, really. When he was happy, and angry, and crying, and insane with grief and fear. Severus _wanted him._ And Severus undressed, too, and then crawled onto the bed, and pressed Harry into the mattress with both hands.

“You want the edge?” he asked, and Harry nodded. Severus grabbed his jaw. “Look at me. I’m not fucking around. I’m not playing games. If you push for more, even _once_ , I will absolutely stop. Do you understand me?” Harry nodded again. “Listen. _No. Pushing.”_

“No pushing,” Harry whispered. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to put you out. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want me to put you out?”

“Yes,” Harry said, and swallowed. “Magic?”

“Oh, no, not magic,” Severus breathed, and turned Harry onto his side to press up behind him. Then, he slid one arm underneath his head, wrapped it loosely around his neck, and flexed and released it, once. “Just like this. Just me.” He stroked his other hand down Harry’s side, and Harry was apparently petrified enough to allow him that tenderness. “I’m going to cut off the blood flow to your brain until you go to sleep. What color is that?”

“Green.” Harry’s voice was so breathless that Severus might have been able to pretend he hadn’t heard it. But he knew what the answer would be already, so why draw it out? Harry wasn’t going to change his mind. Not in a hundred years. He’d _green_ himself right into the hospital, tonight, so Severus wasn’t going to ask him for his color again.

“Do you want me inside you while I do that?” He knew what that answer would be, too, and he was right.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Severus whispered, and touched his wand to Harry’s skin.

“Yes, Sir. Please. Oh - ” Harry gasped shallowly as Severus kissed the back of his neck and slid two fingers into him. 

“I love you,” Severus said, ignoring the wave of physical anxiety that pulsed through Harry’s body, and shifting the arm around his neck so that the crook of his elbow was just in front of his windpipe, ensuring the free flow of air. Air wasn’t what he was going to be restricting, now, after all. What he was going to do was much more dangerous than cutting off his air. “I love you,” he repeated. “I adore you, and I’m doing this because you want me to, not because you deserve it.” Harry went rigid and tried to move away, but Severus tightened his arm. “No pushing,” he said, his voice hard. “No struggling. Yes?” Harry nodded a little against his elbow - as much as he could manage - and relaxed back. “Better.” Severus withdrew his fingers and released the pressure on Harry’s neck as he held him still and began to press inside him. It felt delicious, as always, and suddenly he hated himself for feeling it. How dare he take pleasure, when Harry was in so much pain? 

Well, maybe he could drag him out of it like this, if he did it right. That was the point, wasn’t it? To drag him out of wherever he was right now, and back to earth. With pain, or love, or pleasure, or fear, or whatever it took. 

He could feel Harry swallow against his arm, and began to thrust into him at the angle he knew Harry liked. Or, the angle he _would_ like, if he was in the mood for liking anything at all. Severus was pretty sure he was going to like the chokehold, though. He was probably going to like that more than anyone should. 

“Trust me,” Severus whispered, and began to squeeze, pressing in against the sides of Harry’s neck and compressing his arteries. Harry tensed again, but only just, as Severus counted silently. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. T_ \- he went limp. 

Severus released the pressure immediately, but did not stop moving. Let Harry wake up with Severus still inside him. Gentle. Tender. Loving him. Let him rise up out of oblivion to _that_ and still try to hate himself so terribly. 

He counted again. It took about five seconds for Harry to come to, and when he did, he murmured weakly, and Severus kissed his shoulder.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he breathed. “Would you like another?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but just did it again, tightening his arm around Harry’s throat and counting. This time it only took eight seconds for him to lose consciousness, and then five again to recover. And when he did wake up, he was still so limp that it was almost like he was still out. But he spoke, all the same. Whimpered, really.

_“More - Severus - more - ”_

“No,” Severus whispered back. “Whatever I give you and that’s it.” Harry’s hands came up to touch the arm around his neck, but they didn’t pull on it. They just touched it, gentle, and soft, and tentative. “Oh, Merlin, I love you,” Severus gasped, a ripple of devastating emotion rolling through him. “You’re _mine.”_

Harry whimpered again, and Severus kept on fucking him - so sweetly - without any pressure on his throat - until he got hard. It didn’t take nearly as long as he thought it might. No surprise there, really, once he thought about it. The very first thing that had ever turned Harry on was _violence_ , wasn’t it? Severus losing his temper, and slamming him up against the wall. And here he was, still begging for the worst that Severus could do. 

He did it one more time, knowing that if Harry was hard, then he was quite recovered. This time, though, he did not exert quite as much force right away. He tightened his arm just enough to restrict blood flow, but not to cut it off, wanting it to take a while now that Harry knew what was going to happen. 

Harry swallowed convulsively under his arm at the pressure, and said his name.

“Yes, that’s right. I have your life in my hands,” Severus answered, kissing his temple, and his cheekbone, and hooking one leg over his ankles. “Can you feel it?” Harry nodded again, as much as he could, and Severus slid his other hand down from his hip to take hold of his cock. “You’re absolutely at my mercy, and you _like it,_ don’t you? You like knowing I could put you out like a candle.” Harry whined, and it was _pitiful_. “I could put you out forever. It wouldn’t even take that long. You know how long it took the first time? To put you to sleep?” He tightened his arm a little more for a count of two, and then released a little again. “Ten seconds. That’s all it took.” 

There was absolutely no tension in his body. He’d melted completely back against Severus’ chest. Harry did trust him. With his whole heart and soul. Letting him do this. 

Severus had told him not to fight, so there was no fight. 

None.

“But I won’t do that to you,” he continued softly. “I won’t hurt you. Because I want you to stay. Here, with me. That’s where you belong. You’re mine, and no matter what you do, that will never change. Never.” He began to thrust a little harder, moving his hand a little faster, still keeping that light compression on his carotid arteries. Harry’s head was probably spinning. “Are you dizzy?” Harry nodded again, but only just. “You feel like you’re barely conscious. But you’re still hard, and I’m going to make you come like this.” And when Harry moaned, it was very weak. Severus let up a little bit for a count of five, and then bore down for a count of three. And then he released completely for a count of ten. “You’re going to tip over right into oblivion. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Harry whispered.

“I love you,” Severus said again, tightening his arm. He held it for a count of three, fucking him, twisting his hand, and then released for a count of three, and then he repeated that pattern. Three on, three off, until Harry’s shallow little moans started sounding desperate. And then, when Severus finally felt him start to spill, he tightened up one more time. All the way. And as Harry shuddered through his pleasure, he slipped right back into unconsciousness - _so_ easy - like sinking into a warm bath. 

Severus held it. Two more seconds. Three. And then he released, and began fucking him in earnest, pressing his mouth against Harry’s shoulder, fighting the urge to bite down, wanting him to wake up to pure pleasure, and nothing else. And Harry did wake up, after a moment. 

Severus felt him come back to life just as he passed the point of no return, and he cried out freely, wanting Harry to hear it. Moaning his name, praising him, loving him. Harry tried to reach back for him, but he didn’t quite have the strength to do it.

"Oh _yes - "_

Harry cried out, too, as Severus spent himself, almost too softly to hear, and it was so gorgeous and so submissive that he almost wanted to do it to him again. But he didn’t, because Severus knew that had been enough. There was no _way_ Harry wanted more than that. After being choked out three times? That was enough. 

And it did seem to be enough for him, thank God, because as soon as Severus cast the cleaning charms and drew back the covers, Harry _clung_ to him. And when he started to tremble, it was different than usual. It wasn’t the adrenaline, or the comedown from what Severus had done to him. It was his fear coming out of his body, like venom sucked from a wound. 

Severus held him as he shook, running gentle hands over his shoulders and back. “It’s alright. You’re alright,” he breathed. “I have you.” 

“I - I - - I - ” Harry was trying to say something to him, but whatever it was, he couldn’t get it out. “I’m - ” His voice cracked.

“Hush. Sleep, now. Tell me in the morning.” Harry pressed his face into Severus’ chest, and dug his nails into his back.

“No - _listen_ ,” he gasped. “I - I - ” He tensed up like he was trying to force the words out, and after a moment, out they came. “I’m - too - _dangerous_.” His shaking redoubled. “You should - _leave._ ”

“What?” Severus asked. 

“You - should _leave me -_ you _should -_ ” he repeated. “Everyone - near me - gets hurt. If anyone _stays-”_

Severus tightened his arms. “Harry, no. No. It’s not _you_. It’s the war. It’s the Dark Lord, and his servants, not _you._ And if you’re dangerous because of that, then I’m dangerous for the same reason, aren’t I? I wouldn’t be any safer away from you. I would just be alone.” Harry’s sad little squeak of protest was muffled against his chest. “If we are apart, we will each still have to fight. So why would I leave? You won’t save me by sending me away, and I won’t go.” Harry didn’t relax, but his nails disengaged, at least, so Severus continued. “Poppy assured me that your friend will make a full recovery. After a week or so he’ll be back to normal. And _you_ did that. You thought of a bezoar, and you found one.”

“You thought of it,” Harry whispered. “I read it in your notes. _Just shove a bezoar down their throats._ That’s what I did - I just - shoved it down his throat and he - he - ” He broke off, and Severus wondered how bad it had been. If Ron had been thrashing, or seizing - or what color he had turned. Poison was not pretty. Even the gentlest kinds were horrific in their effects. 

“Horace knew what to do, too. But he froze, didn’t he?” Harry nodded against his chest. “He froze, but you acted. Because you’re a survivor, and he’s just a pompous old man. You saved a life today. You saved him.” The shaking was subsiding, and Severus’ loosened his grip a little, too. “So what if you were upset, after? If you needed me _after?_ In the moment you did what needed to be done. In the face of crisis, you could still think.”

“Like you?”

“Yes, like me. But you need to sleep, now. You need to rest.” Harry made an unhappy sound and hid his face. “You can. I’ll help you. Breathe with me, now. Will you breathe with me?” Harry nodded, and Severus kissed his forehead. “Inhale,” he whispered, and counted. “Exhale…”

It took a while, but Harry did sleep, eventually. And when he did, Severus put out the light and lay awake, thinking about Lucius. 

Lucius Malfoy, who had sown so much chaos in Severus’ life. And now Draco, like an infected splinter in this school. Like a terminal disease, spreading his poison. Son, after father. Toxic, and contagious, and deadly.

***

The next morning, Severus awoke early to find that his bed was empty. He leapt up, and pulled on a dressing gown, but he needn’t have panicked. Harry was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room with his eyes closed, as serene as you please. There was even a sort of heat-shimmer around him, but as Severus stopped in the open door, his eyes snapped open and the shimmer vanished.

“Apologies,” Severus said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was afraid you’d left.”

“That’s ok,” Harry answered. “I was almost done.” He gave Severus a small smile. “Sorry for having a meltdown.”

“Oh, I thought it was rather justified. And we were due for one, anyway. Did you sleep enough?”

“I think so. I feel alright. I was going to visit the hospital wing before classes.”

He really was improving, wasn’t he? He really was getting stronger. Severus thought of how he’d been the morning after the Christmas party, and after he’d returned from the Burrow. Compared to that, he was almost - healthy, now. Almost.

“Shall I escort you?”

“To see Ron? No, that’s ok. I can go by myself.”

He was. He was getting better. He was recovering faster, each time. 

***

Ron woke up that afternoon, and once he had, the main effect of his close call with the grave seemed to be that Hermione was speaking to him again. And that, Harry supposed, was a net gain. He really did seem almost normal, too, if a little tired, though he was severely disappointed to hear that McLaggen would be filling in for him during the next week’s match with Hufflepuff. Harry assured him that even if McLaggen was a world-class keeper he would still chuck him off the team at the first opportunity.

“He’s annoying,” Harry told him, sitting beside his hospital bed. “He’s driving me absolutely mad. He seems to think that he’s the captain, not me, and that he can fill every position better than all the other players. He deserves a bludger to the head, honestly.” Ron just grunted in a morose, skeptical sort of way. “I’m serious. I’d try to drag you out of bed to play if I thought I could get away with it. And speaking of annoying, Lavender is driving me mad as well.” Lavender had been dogging Harry non-stop trying to ask him questions about Ron, and between her and McLaggen it was like Harry had two excruciatingly irritating shadows. One huge, hulking one, and one small, high-pitched one. And that made it very hard to talk to Severus during the day. “Just break up with her if you don’t want to see her anymore. You can’t just pretend to be sleeping every time she visits. She’s taking it out on me.”

***

Severus went up to his office to watch the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match out the window. He couldn’t see that well, but he could hear the commentary, and certainly he wouldn’t go down to the stands to watch Harry play. That would just be too transparent for words. So, instead, he sat at his desk, and watched from afar as the distant players took up their positions. 

It became apparent almost at once that Luna Lovegood had somehow been chosen as commentator.

“Oh, look, he’s lost the Quaffle. Ginny took it from him, I do like her, she’s very nice…”

Severus snorted. Had Minerva made that decision? What a mistake. It was pretty hard to follow what was happening with such bizarrely off-topic commentary, but even so, he was relatively sure he could tell which player was Harry, circling high over the match. And then Harry stopped, hovering in mid air.

“And Harry Potter’s now having an argument with his Keeper…” the crowd jeered and roared. “I don’t think that will help him find the Snitch, but maybe it’s a clever ruse…” Severus rolled his eyes. Ron had been Harry’s keeper, hadn’t he? And he was still in the hospital wing. He wondered who Harry had gotten to take his place. Obviously not a team player. “Oh, look! The Gryffindor Keeper’s got hold of one of the Beater’s bats.” 

The what was _what?_

Severus stood up to get a better view. And then, the player he thought was Harry zoomed down towards the goal posts, pointing and gesticulating wildly. And got absolutely _clocked_ by a bludger, and pitched off his broom towards the ground.

***

Harry opened his eyes to what sounded like Ron and Severus talking. Which probably meant he was hallucinating. He raised his head awkwardly - it felt kind of heavy - and there was a shuffle, and Severus appeared at his bedside. Past him, in the adjacent bed, was Ron. Not hallucinating, then. Hospital wing. 

“Nice of you to drop in,” Ron said, grinning. Harry looked up at Severus.

“Oh. Hi. Hospital?” The sky outside was crimson with sunset, and the last thing he remembered, the game had hardly started and he’d been shouting at McLaggen to give Peakes back his bat. 

“You have a cracked skull,” Severus said. “Your keeper hit you with a bludger.” Ron chuckled from behind him and Severus scowled. “It’s not really funny.”

“It is, a bit,” Ron said. “Madam Pomfrey said she healed it straight away and that you’ll be fine.”

Harry raised a hand to his head and felt a stiff turban of bandages. “Jeez. We lost, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. Really bad.”

“It was that boy from the Christmas Party,” Severus muttered darkly. Harry looked up at him, and then, taking in his expression, grimaced.

“You didn’t do anything to him, did you? He’s just an idiot.”

“Professor Snape’s going to kill him, ha ha ha,” Ron chuckled gleefully.

“He hurt you,” Severus said.

“Yeah, with stupidity. I’m fine.”

“A cracked skull is not fine.”

“It’s fixed already, right?”

“Give him a TON of detention,” Ron cackled. “Just aaaaages of detention. He hurt Harry. If the beaters hadn’t caught him before he hit the ground he would have broken his neck. McLaggen’s fault! Destroy him!” he started laughing again, and Madam Pomfrey came out to see what the ruckus was about, and then sent Severus away, admonishing him not to overexcite her patients. 

Harry gave him a little wave as he left, but Severus just nodded gravely. Once the double doors had swung shut, Harry touched his bracelet and thought, _I’m fine. Don’t do anything._

_[He’s a clod. He deserves detention just for breathing your precious air]_

_Sorry for scaring you._

_[Don’t worry about me]_

“What’s he say?” Ron asked, once Harry had covered his bracelet with his sleeve.

“Oh, he says that McLaggen deserves detention. Because he’s a clod.”

Ron burst into laughter again and then muffled it with his hands so Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t come out again. “I gotta say, Harry, I didn’t like this Snape situation before, but he was so incredibly pissed off when he busted in here that I thought he was going to find McLaggen and string him up by his ankles! Ha. That’d serve him right.”

“Yeah, well…” Harry looked away, blushing. “He can be pretty protective.”

“I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite that angry before. And it wasn’t even at us!”

Harry thought about Severus’ anger and felt his cheeks heat still further. _Change the subject._

“What was the score?” he asked.

Ron’s rapturous expression fell. “Oh… uh…”

The final score had been 320 to 60. And that… was really bad.

***

Once Ron was asleep, Harry lay there in the quiet just thinking for a while. He wished Madam Pomfrey hadn’t sent Severus away. He needed to talk to him. But maybe it would be better to do it through the bracelets so Severus wouldn’t get upset. Because Harry was not supposed to be concerned about Malfoy, but he was. He’d run into him behaving very shiftily on the way down to the match, and now, Harry wished he’d just followed him right then instead of going to the match and getting concussed. What if Malfoy was up to something dangerous? After what had happened to Ron, it seemed too important not to mention, no matter what he’d promised. He touched his bracelet.

_I saw Malfoy before the match._

There was a short pause.

 _[Did you?]_ appeared.

_Yeah, I did. I know you told me not to worry about him but now that Ron’s been poisoned, I’m having a hard time obeying that order._

_[What did you see?]_

_Just Malfoy with a couple of girls going back towards the castle by themselves. He missed the last match, too._

_[What makes you think that’s significant?]_

_I dunno._

_[Why do you think Malfoy had anything to do with the poisoned mead?]_

Harry sighed, and looked at the ceiling. Why did he think that? He just did. More than that, though. He was _sure_.

 _I dunno, I just do,_ he sent. 

***

_[I dunno, I just do.]_

Severus tapped his wand absently against his thigh, thinking. Of course Harry thought Malfoy was involved. Malfoy _was_ involved. What could he say? With Harry injured in the hospital wing he felt less inclined to lie than ever. Maybe Harry knew that and was using it to his advantage. He might be. He could be pretty calculating.

“I’ll look into it,” was all he said, in the end. 

_[Ok. I think I’ll go into my magic, now]_ Harry sent back. _[I love you, Severus]_

“And I love you,” Severus said. “Enjoy the sunlight.” And then Harry didn’t say anything else. 


	5. The Missing Dot

Harry and Ron were released from the hospital wing Monday morning, bright and early, and Harry had hardly taken two steps towards breakfast before Luna popped out with a note from Dumbledore. Another meeting, that night. More creepy trips into the gory past of Voldemort, and a heaping helping of guilt for not getting the memory from Slughorn. 

One interesting thing about this meeting, though, was that Harry already knew what Horcruxes were, which Dumbledore didn’t know. So, as the Headmaster showed Harry some memories of Tom Riddle, now a dapper young man, weirdly flattering the enormous and cake-like Hepzibah Smith, Harry began to feel a vague sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Horcruxes were objects imbued with the soul of a murderous wizard, and Dumbledore had shown him a rather alarming number of significant objects by this point. The ring, the locket, the cup… Just how many Horcruxes could one person make? How much soul went into each one?

Harry stayed silent, though, knowing that he was not meant to have that information yet, and Dumbledore continued with his story. Voldemort had killed Hebzibah Smith, framed her elderly house elf, and then disappeared. He was gone for years, before suddenly reappearing at Hogwarts, wanting a job. Dumbledore, looking almost the same as he did in the modern day, but without his withered hand, declined to hire him. And then the current Dumbledore told Harry that this was why no subsequent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had ever lasted more than a single year. Tom Riddle, denied the post, had apparently cursed it. What a sore loser.

“None of them have?” Harry asked.

“Not one.”

“But…” he trailed off.

“But what about Professor Snape?” Dumbledore supplied.

“Yeah.”

“We shall just have to wait and see.”

Harry left that meeting with a renewed sense of urgency. He’d gotten so distracted with Severus, and the hypnosis, and the colors, and Quidditch, and Ron’s poisoning that he’d completely forgotten that he was supposed to get the memory from Slughorn to fight Voldemort. It wasn’t just some homework assignment, it was a step on the path to end the war, and he’d been stupid to forget that. He remembered it, now, though. Maybe it was the bludger to the head. Knocked some sense right into him. 

So, over the next week, Harry wracked his brains nonstop to try to think of some new way to get to Slughorn. Now that Hermione and Ron were friends again, they were quite motivated to help, but there was nothing for it. He couldn’t even get Slughorn in the same room with him, let alone catch him unawares. And he couldn’t think of a single bleeding idea that wasn’t just more of the same, either.

And then there was Malfoy. He’d tried to ask Severus in person the night he’d been released from the hospital wing, but Severus deflected, and then distracted him, and Harry didn’t realize that was what had happened until much later. It was impossible to focus around that man, really. He was so… distracting. 

Harry might go down to the dungeons intending to have a targeted conversation, but would end up on his back on the floor, or face down on the bed, or on his knees against the wall, and would completely forget what he’d meant to ask. Sometimes he wouldn’t remember until _days later_. He’d just sit bolt upright in his four-poster, or drop his fork at breakfast, suddenly realizing Severus had fucking _done it again._ Sometimes he felt like it was actually physically impossible to remember anything at all when Severus could get his hands on him.

So, Harry stopped trying to ask him anything important. Instead, he used the time he spent trapped in Gryffindor tower to think. Alone in his hangings, when Severus couldn’t touch him, or look at him, or speak to him, it was a lot easier to concentrate. And if Harry told Severus he was going to practice his self-hypnosis thing, even the bracelet would stay silent until he was done. 

He thought about Slughorn, and about Malfoy, and about Voldemort, and Horcruxes. He worried about the cursed DADA position, too, though thinking about that invariably resulted in a long daydream about Severus, which was a waste of his time. If he wanted Severus, he could have him. No need to lay in his bed mooning over the man just because he couldn’t control his own stupid brain. 

So, praying for a sudden stroke of inspiration, he would mull over these problems for hours upon hours, and when he got too tired, or too stressed out, he would either go into his magic and walk around in the field, or talk to Severus through the bracelets. Sometimes, if he got _way_ too stressed out, he would ask to be called down, and Severus would call him, and ask him what happened, and Harry wouldn’t tell him, and Severus would ask what he wanted, instead. 

They were both deflecting and distracting each other, maybe.

It was almost the middle of March by the time Harry suddenly remembered the Marauders Map. And when he did remember it, he almost banged his head against the wall he was so annoyed with himself. How could he have forgotten the _map?_ He supposed he’d been spoiled by the bracelets. Why worry about sneaking around the corridors, when he could just appear in Snape’s quarters whenever he wanted? That was the only forbidden place he wanted to be, these days.

 _“Idiot,”_ Harry whispered to himself, sliding out of his bed as quietly as he could manage. The other boys had been asleep for a while, and he could hear Neville snoring, so he crept over to his trunk on his sock feet and began gingerly lifting things out of it. He pulled out piles of old robes and books and general detritus and set it all carefully out of the way. He pulled out quills and ink bottles - freezing once as Ron snorted and rolled over - and then his tiny bottle of Felix Felicis, wrapped in a pair of old, balled up socks. And then finally, finally, at the very bottom, he found the map, and took it back into his hangings.

Summoning a little ball of light with his fingers, he tapped the parchment and mouthed, _“I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”_ The image of Hogwarts materialized in front of his eyes, little labeled black dots and all, and he scanned it eagerly. The first thing his eye caught on was the dot labeled _Severus Snape,_ down in the dungeons, but he passed over that, telling himself to focus. He scanned the Slytherin common room and dorms next, but was disappointed almost immediately. Draco Malfoy was in his bed, right where he was supposed to be. 

Harry frowned. Well, he’d just have to keep checking. 

***

It took Harry two more weeks to figure out that Malfoy was in the room of requirement, which was not good. He’d been so stupid, seeing the little dots of Crabbe and Goyle hovering around, apparently alone, in the seventh floor corridor that Harry had spent so much time in last year. OBVIOUSLY they were guarding the room of requirement. And when Harry finally made it to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and saw two little girls instead of Malfoy’s cronies, it all made so much fucking sense that he almost just walked right up to them to say hello. There had been a veritable _bucket_ of polyjuice potion in Slughorn’s classroom on the first day of term. Clearly Malfoy had nicked some, and every time Harry saw him with two girls it was really Crabbe and Goyle. 

When he told this to Ron and Hermione, Ron was positively transported with glee.

“He’s making them transform into _girls?”_ he guffawed. “Blimey… no wonder they don’t look too happy these days. I’m surprised they don’t tell him to stuff it!”

Hermione didn’t think it was very funny, though. She just told him to focus on Slughorn and to stop wasting time. 

“Tell Snape if you’re so concerned,” she hissed. “Malfoy isn’t your job, Harry.” 

“I did tell him,” Harry whispered back. 

“And what did he say?” Harry frowned, and didn’t answer, but Hermione saw right through him. “And he’s _right._ You should listen to him, Harry.”

“I do listen to him!” Harry shot back. “But I can’t think of anything new to try with Slughorn, ok? I’m doing my best. And no,” he held up a hand to forestall her obvious rejoinder, “I still haven’t asked _Snape_ for help with that because _I’m not supposed to.”_ He had already told her this, but she kept on suggesting it. It was annoying, because Harry really did want to ask Severus for help, and it took a lot of energy to hold it back. “So cut it out.”

“Fine,” she said scornfully. “Enjoy your wild goose chase.”

He didn’t enjoy it. Because, though he’d been quite sure he’d be able to get into the room of requirement with no trouble, he was wrong. And after a few free periods spent pacing back and forth in front of the blank corridor wall, thinking a hundred variations of, _“I need to see what Malfoy is doing in there,”_ with no success, he had to admit defeat. 

***

“Are you up to something?” Severus asked. He had Harry’s bare feet in his lap and was slowly working them over with his fingers and thumbs. He’d found over the weeks that he quite liked doing that. Harry squirmed and gasped very prettily when he did. 

“No,” Harry answered, and then dropped his head back against the arm of the sofa with a little moan as Severus dragged the pad of his thumb down the arch of his left foot and dug it in.

“You’re lying to me.”

“How can I lie when you’re treating me so -” he gasped, _“nicely.”_

“I can treat you poorly, if you prefer,” Severus purred back, moving to his other foot. “But I can tell when you’re lying, you know.”

“What am I up to, then?” Harry asked, scooting a little further down towards him and stretching his arms over his head. “If I’m so transparent.” He arched back against the cushions with a groan of pleasure, apparently in response to what Severus was doing with his feet, but Severus was pretty sure he was trying to be distracting. And he was. He was very distracting. Severus wasn't a fool, though.

“You’ve been staring at Draco Malfoy,” he said slowly, looking away from the lovely lines of his body as Harry relaxed back again. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Worried I’m interested in him, are you?” Harry laughed. “I’m not really that into blondes.” He yelped as Severus gave him a particularly vicious stroke in the sole of his foot for that.

“What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything.” 

“Potter.”

“Ooh, _Potter_. That’s not very scary when you’re rubbing my feet.”

“You seem to like it when I’m fucking you.”

“I like it right now, too. It’s just not scaring me.” Severus’ hands stilled. Harry was definitely trying to distract him. Trying to bait him. He was probably going to try to change the subject if he thought he could get away with it. Severus continued his ministrations, and waited to see if he would. He did. “I saw McLaggen today,” Harry said with a sigh, dropping his head back again and closing his eyes. 

“Oh?” Severus asked. He moved on to the ball of Harry’s foot, pressing his thumbs into it and spreading the bones a little. _He’s bringing up McLaggen because he wants you to feel like you’re in control. He’s getting much better at this._

“Yeah. He was coming out of the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. He looked pretty traumatized.”

“Yes, well, he’ll be doing that for a while, won’t he?” Severus answered lightly, locating a knot of tension in Harry’s foot and staying on it.

“Oh _, fuck_ that’s good. What did you get him for?”

“Back talk.”

“You’re so ruthless.”

Severus made a noncommittal noise. He was ruthless. He’d baited McLaggen into mouthing off to him, and had given him eight consecutive detentions. Four with Hagrid, and four with Filch. Severus rather thought he deserved more, but didn’t think he could get away with doing anything worse to him. 

Harry continued on his new light topic of conversation. “Ron liked that a lot. I think you’ve really won him over,” he laughed. 

“And Ms. Granger?” 

“Oh, I think she kind of liked you the whole time. Just as a teacher, you know. She never hated you like I did. Used to say I was overreacting. She even told me to obey you the other day. Little does she know how obedient I can be.” Severus put his foot back down. That was quite enough nonsense.

“Harry,” he said. Harry cracked one eye to look at him. “What do you know?” Harry closed his eyes again and tipped his chin up, showing his long, pale throat. _Oh, look at that. He’s trying so hard._

“I know a lot of things, Severus. And so do you.”

“Tell me.”

“Is that an order?” Severus didn’t answer that. He wasn’t going to play anymore. Harry had been looking at Malfoy like he was trying to x-ray him for weeks. Harry was obviously trying to do something, and Severus was not going to let him weasel out of this conversation just by being coquettish. He stayed silent. “Alright, fine,” Harry sighed, after a while. “Maybe we can trade, then.” 

“Trade?”

Sometimes Harry wished that he was as good at sidetracking Severus as Severus was at sidetracking him, and this was one of those times. 

He looked at the ceiling. 

What he’d figured out about Malfoy was definitely important, and he was afraid that if he told Severus, he’d dismiss it and tell Harry to let it alone like he had before. But… maybe he wouldn’t. This was actual information, this time, and maybe it would make a critical difference in stopping Draco down the line. It might. He should just tell it and take the scolding. 

“Yeah, a trade,” he began. “I’ll answer your questions, if you answer mine.” Severus did not speak. “I’ll go first, if you want. As a gesture of good faith.” Harry was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. He wished Severus would start rubbing his foot again. With Severus’ whole attention on what he was about to say, Harry was at once very afraid he was going to get shouted at. Because Harry couldn’t think of any way to tell Severus where Malfoy was without telling him _how_ he knew where Malfoy was. He was going to have to show him the map, and Severus probably wasn’t going to like it very much at all. He took a deep breath. “Remember that really rude piece of parchment you confiscated from me back in my third year?”

“Yes.” Severus took his foot back and started working on it again, thank god. 

“And do you remember back when Crouch was impersonating Mad Eye Moody during the Tri Wizard Tournament?”

“Yes, I do. You almost died.” 

“And you and Filch found my golden egg and that parchment on the staircase.” _Here we go. Brace for impact._

“How do you know about that?” Severus asked slowly. 

“I was there. I was stuck in the vanishing step under my cloak.” Severus’ hands on him froze.

“I KNEW IT!” he burst out. Harry pulled his legs away and sat up. “You little _troublemaker._ I KNEW IT!”

“Hey, I’m not done,” Harry broke in, before Severus could hit his stride on a tirade. “I’m trying to tell you something, so listen to me. That parchment is a map of Hogwarts. The fake Moody took it from me that night because it shows every person in the school and their location, labeled with their names. I saw ‘Barty Crouch’ in your office, and he saw himself labeled like that on the map, so he took it from me.”

“... What?” Severus looked like he’d been punched.

“It’s a map of Hogwarts. I have it.” Harry leapt up to retrieve his bag from the entryway, hoping to stave off an explosion. “I have it. Here.” He brought it back over to the couch, activated it, and handed it over. Severus just stared at it for a long time, his eyes jumping around to all the little moving dots.

“You’re telling me… that you… have had this… the whole time?” Harry shifted uncomfortably on his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. “This is the most incriminating object I have ever seen. If anyone else saw this … look at us. Merlin.” He put his face in his hand, and Harry took the map back to see. Of course, there was his dot, practically overlapped with the dot labeled _Severus Snape_ , in his personal quarters. He imagined Fred and George looking at the map and seeing Harry in Snape’s bedroom three or four nights a week. 

“Oh, yeah,” Harry said. “That’s pretty incriminating. Good thing it’s mine, eh?” he laughed nervously. Severus glared at him.

“You stole Gillyweed from me,” he said. 

“Hey, one thing at a time. Look at the map.” He handed it back. “Can you find Malfoy on there?” Severus’ eyes searched the parchment for a long time.

“No…” he said slowly. “He’s not there. But…” he trailed off, and Harry pointed to the Goyle dot on the seventh floor. 

“He’s in the room of requirement.”

Severus looked back up at him. “The what?”

“Oh. You don’t - Wow. Ok. This might be a long explanation.”

Harry sat back down in his spot, crossed his legs, and told Severus what he knew about the room. He told him how he’d used it to meet with the DA, and how the magic worked, and how it could become whatever you needed. He told him how it was unplottable, and how he’d tried tons of times to get in to see what Malfoy was using it for, but with no luck. He told him how Dumbledore knew about it, a little, and so did the house elves, though they all called it different things. 

During this monologue Severus just stared at him, absolutely silent.

“Are you making that up?” he asked when Harry was done. 

“No, of course not,” Harry answered, annoyed. “I’m trying to tell you that Malfoy is spending all of his time in a magical room that becomes whatever you need it to be. And that is _bad, right?”_

Severus’ eyes swept the map again. “Yes,” he began. “That is bad.” He looked up. “When did you notice this?”

“Not that long ago. I forgot I even had it, for a while.” He shrugged. “I’ve been pretty focused on you, to be honest. My turn, though. Does Malfoy have a Dark Mark?”

Severus met his eyes, and then looked down at the parchment. “That’s your question?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “That’s my question.”

Severus chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, wondering if he should lie. There was probably no point. “Yes,” he finally said. “He does. He was marked over the summer.” Severus had been there. It had given him flashbacks, which he’d thought he’d moved beyond. Draco was just so young. About the same age Severus had been, in fact. Harry’s age. It was always terrible to watch, but the young ones were the worst. “It was…” he trailed off, wondering what in Merlin’s name he’d been about to say. Brutal? Grotesque? Violent? He closed his mouth.

“Alright…” Harry said when Severus did not continue. “No, I didn’t steal the gillyweed. Crouch set Dobby up to steal it on my behalf so I’d make it to the final task. That was a weird year. My turn again.” He took a deep breath. “He poisoned the mead, didn’t he?”

Severus looked back down at the map. At all the little dots moving around. He looked at Harry’s dot, in his rooms, and then back up at Harry himself. “I can’t answer that.”

“Sounds like a yes to me,” Harry shot back. “Just tell me, Severus. Just tell me and I’ll keep it a secret like I keep everything else a secret. Obviously I’m trustworthy.”

“It isn’t about trust.”

“No?” Harry snatched the map back from his hands. “ _Mischief managed,”_ he said, tapping it, and rolling it back up. “Let me ask you something else, then. Why would Voldemort send someone as incompetent as Malfoy here to kill Dumbledore?”

Severus’ ears rang like he’d just been hit with a pipe. 

_What did he just ask? What?_

“What makes you think that’s what he’s trying to do?” Severus asked slowly. “Why ask that?” Harry sighed and looked away from him.

“Because he’s obviously doing something for Voldemort, or you wouldn’t have cornered him like that after the Christmas party. And what else could it be? He’s not trying to kill _me._ Who else is there? Slughorn? Come on.” He paused, and looked back at Snape sitting there like a statue. “I’m not an _idiot_ , Severus.” Severus opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Why would Voldemort send Malfoy when he couldn’t possibly succeed?”

“You are a very clever wizard,” Severus began, but Harry cut him off. 

“Flattery? Call me handsome, too. _‘Lovely Precious Potter,’_ and maybe I’ll forget my question.” He rolled his eyes. “Why would Voldemort do this? Why not send someone else? Someone stronger? More qualified? Why Draco Malfoy?”

Harry was so close to the truth it was appalling. He was _so close._ He was _touching the truth_ and he didn’t know it.

“I should obliviate you,” Severus said lightly, like it was a joke. It wasn’t a joke, though. He was really considering it right then. 

“You’ve threatened that before,” Harry answered. “And look where that got us. Just answer me and I’ll let it go, ok? Why Draco?”

Everything was so much simpler when Harry wasn’t paying attention. Maybe Severus should have left him to suffer back at Headquarters. If he wasn't sleeping his brain wouldn’t be working so well. 

What an unkind thought. 

He looked at Harry sitting cross-legged on the sofa and wondered if there was still a way to turn his attention. He didn’t think so. He’d have to give him something. Something true, maybe, but incomplete. Something upsetting enough to feel like the whole story. 

“Fine,” he began. “But if I tell you this, no more. Alright?” Harry nodded. “It is my belief that The Dark Lord is punishing Lucius Malfoy for fumbling the plan to retrieve the prophecy. After you escaped the Department of Mysteries, He was … not pleased.” Severus paused, flexing his left hand. “Do you remember when He called me over Christmas?”

“Yes.” Harry was listening with rapt attention, with his knees drawn up to his chest. 

“Well, he called me for a specific purpose, that night. To torture Draco’s father.”

“Torture him?” 

“Yes.”

“What did you have to do?”

Severus looked away. He didn’t want to upset Harry quite _that_ much. “That, I will not say.” 

“But… why?”

“He did not tell me why. At least, not specifically. But I think he meant to pressure Draco into trying harder. To hurt him. Frighten him. To make him move faster.”

“And then he did the poison.”

“Yes.”

Harry seemed to mull this over for a while, and when he spoke it was so shockingly perceptive that Severus thought about obliviating him again. Just - wiping his brain clean and starting this conversation over. Letting Harry distract him when he tried, fucking him on the sofa, and then going to bed. 

“So…” Harry said. “Voldemort sent Draco here to try to kill Dumbledore, knowing that he would fail, just to punish his father. He wants Draco to die trying, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Severus said. “I believe he means Albus to take away Lucius’ only son.”

“That’s really sick.”

“Yes, it is.” He suddenly wondered if Harry had heard the words _unbreakable vow_ that night after the party. Severus didn’t think so, but if he had, hopefully he didn’t remember. That was the only piece he didn’t have, wasn’t it? “Don’t ask me anymore, now. That is much more than you are supposed to hear.”

“One more thing and I’ll stop, ok?” Harry asked. Severus scowled at his hands and nodded. “Does Dumbledore know all of that?”

“Yes, of course he knows. He knows everything that I know, and everything that you know, and more.” _He thinks he knows the future. The bastard._ “Now, no more.”

“Alright,” Harry answered. “If you and Dumbledore know, that’s all I can hope for, I guess. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For not lying.”

But Severus was lying, wasn’t he? By omission. 

***

By around the middle of April, Harry discovered that he could change his field if he cared to. He could make things grow, and make animals appear. He could change the weather, if he wanted. He could make mountains far away in the distance, and he did. He made a little lake, and put frogs in it. He made some trees for shade. He saw a picture in his Potions book of a type of grass that grew stalks of seeds five feet tall, and he put some of that in there, too, just for fun. Pampas grass, it was called. The blades were razor sharp in real life, but inside his magic he didn’t have to worry about that. 

He told Severus about this discovery, and Severus told him that he could make it anything he wanted, and that was the point. Severus had just suggested the field to him initially because he thought Harry would like it. 

“I do like it,” Harry said. “I like it a lot.”

“And what do you do there?” Severus asked.

“I just sit, mostly. Or walk around. It’s easier to think in there. It’s quiet, like you said.”

“And what do you think about?”

Harry was thinking about Malfoy a lot, in fact. But he didn’t say that. He hadn’t stopped trying to get into the room of requirement after their conversation. In fact, after thinking about it a while longer he decided to try harder. “Oh, just you, mostly.”

“How sweet,” Severus answered. “Pity it’s a lie.”

“Is not,” Harry countered. Severus took hold of the front of his robes and pushed him gently against the wall. 

“Is so,” he breathed, and kissed him. 

***

At breakfast on Monday, April 21st, Hermione and Ron were vibrating with so much anxiety that Harry could practically hear it. It was the apparition test scheduled for that afternoon that was causing it. They were both, apparently, quite convinced they would fail horribly, which was really annoying. Hermione had been apparating perfectly for weeks, and at least Ron was allowed to take the test. Harry wouldn’t be old enough for months still. He was especially irritated by this newest misfortune because he’d been thwarted in both his attempts to corner Slughorn, and to get into the room of requirement, at every turn. No matter what he tried, nothing was working. His temper was short, and it wasn’t his fault he was born in _July_.

Maybe while Ron and Hermione were getting their Apparition licenses, Harry could have another go at Slughorn and the room. Try to get at least a little bit of success while he was left behind at Hogwarts with the other sixteen-year-old losers. He said so, and Hermione scolded him for worrying about Malfoy, and then redirected him towards Slughorn, as she always did. 

“Look,” she said. “Potions will be almost empty this afternoon, with all of us doing our tests. Try and soften Slughorn up a bit then!” She was so confident it would be that simple. Ugh. 

He rolled his eyes. 

A girl walked by, and Ron jumped and looked around, but it wasn’t Lavender. The last four girls that had walked by hadn’t been Lavender, either, though he twitched guiltily those times, too. Ron was hiding from her, which Harry thought was stupid. He should just chuck her, ask Hermione out, and be done with it. Put them all out of their misery.

This time, though, the girl wasn’t just walking by, she had a scroll for him, which Harry took with a sinking feeling. If it was from Dumbledore, he would really be in trouble. The Headmaster had told him that they wouldn’t meet again until Harry got the memory, and he hadn’t, so any new lesson would probably just be a long and painful lecture.

The scroll wasn’t from Dumbledore, though. It was from Hagrid. Apparently his good friend Aragog, the gigantic and murderous spider, had tragically died, and all three of them were invited to the funeral that night. 

Honestly Hagrid was sometimes so insane. 

Harry read through the letter twice and then handed it to Hermione, who blanched. 

“Oh, goodness,” she whispered. “He can’t possibly expect us to go out into the grounds at night for _that.”_ The teardrops smudging the ink actually had made Harry consider going for a moment, but Hermione was right. That would be a stupid reason to get detention, wouldn’t it? Sneaking out of the castle after curfew for a spider funeral. “Just focus on Slughorn,” she said again. “Ask him today.”

“Fifty-seventh time lucky, you think?” Harry scoffed at her.

“Lucky,” Ron said suddenly. “Harry, wait. That’s it - get lucky!”

“What?”

“Use your lucky potion!”

Harry blinked at him. “Oh,” he said. 

Severus really didn’t do much for his powers of deduction, did he? First he’d forgotten the map, and now this. Where did he keep his brain? In Snape’s pocket?

“Felix Felicis!” Hermione cried, looking at Ron like he was carved from gold. “Ron, that’s - that’s it!” Ron turned red and Harry rolled his eyes, thinking, _‘just ask her out you great dolt. Jeez.’_ He really was in a bad mood. Maybe Severus could break him out of it, later.

Hermione was right that Potions would be almost empty during the apparition test. Only Ernie, Malfoy, and Harry himself were too young to go. And although Harry did not succeed in getting Slughorn alone, he was able to get a close look at Malfoy, who by this point was not only as pallid and sick-looking as ever, but looked even thinner. Almost like a skeleton. 

Looking at him, Harry was struck with the thought that Voldemort was probably going to get his wish. Malfoy was obviously failing.

***

_[Care to come down?]_ appeared on Harry’s wrist that night after dinner. Looking at it, he rather did care to come down. But he was in his dormitory with Ron and Hermione, waiting for the sun to set so he could try out Ron’s lucky potion idea. Harry touched his finger to the cuff to reply.

_Maybe in a bit. I’m in the middle of something._

_[Something you aren’t supposed to be doing, no doubt.]_

_Have a little faith, Severus. I’ll come when I’m done, ok?_

_[I’ll make you come twice. How’s that sound?]_

Harry covered his wrist hastily as he saw Ron look over at him. 

“What’s he say?” Ron asked. Hermione looked over, too.

“Oh,” Harry started, fighting back a flush of embarrassment. “He says… uh… that I’m supposed to be practicing my meditation thing.”

“How’s that going?” Hermione asked. “Anything new?”

Harry had told them both about the magical meditation Severus was teaching him, and about the field. Hermione liked it a lot, especially when he told her that he wasn’t really taking Dreamless Sleep anymore. 

“Oh, it’s good,” Harry answered. “I put some birds in. It’s fun.”

“I’d like to learn that,” Hermione sighed, sounding wistful. “I bet it would help tons with test anxiety.”

“Se- Snape told me sometimes when I’m doing it I conjure stuff. You wouldn’t want to do that during a test, would you? Just a bunch of frogs or whatever.” He laughed. Severus told him he actually had summoned a frog once, though it disappeared when he woke back up. The stuff he made was sort of transparent, too, apparently. Like a memory, or a ghost. 

The sun was sinking down behind the trees outside. Surely Slughorn would be back in his office by now, and then meant it was time. Harry took out the rolled-up socks at the bottom of his trunk and extracted the tiny, gleaming bottle.

“Well, here goes,” he said, and poured a careful measure into his mouth.

“What does it feel like?” Hermione whispered, sounding worried. 

Harry didn’t answer right away. It didn’t feel like anything at first. But then, very slowly, an exhilarating sense of infinite opportunity began to bubble up inside him. He suddenly felt as though he could do anything - anything at all - and that getting the memory from Slughorn wasn’t only possible, but positively _easy._ He just had to go to Hagrid’s spider funeral, first, didn’t he? That seemed like the place to be, tonight. 

***

With the little bottle of Slughorn’s memory in his hand, and Slughorn and Hagrid left in a drunken stupor beside Aragog’s grave, Harry began strolling back to the castle, whistling a little tune. As he walked, it occurred to him how lovely it would be to see Severus just then. He should say thank you for helping him win the Felix Felicis in the first place. Without his old potions book, Harry would never have won the lucky potion, and would never have been able to get the crucial memory that he now had in his hand. He should thank Severus for teaching him the self-hypnosis thing, too. It really was helping him an awful lot. The field was fantastic, especially now that he had more control over it. 

It was almost like the room of requirement, in some ways, wasn’t it? He could make it anything he wanted. It was even easier to use than the room, too. Instead of having to think something three times, and hope it appeared, he could just think it once, and there it would be. A flower, or a tree, or a creek, or whatever he wanted. He wondered what Hermione would make if he taught her to do it. A library, maybe. The biggest library in the world. And what about Ron? Quidditch pitch? And then he wondered what the inside of Severus’ magic was like. Probably not a field. Maybe underwater or something like that. Or a cave. Something dark. And then Harry thought about Malfoy. What would he make, if he knew how to go into his magic? He sure looked like he would benefit from a little peace and quiet. He was looking so unwell. He probably spent all his free time in the room of requirement and never got out in the sun at all. No fresh air. Unhealthy of him to do that. He must really need to hide something. To have someplace to hide whatever he was working on. A hiding place. A…

Harry froze mid-stride.

A place to hide.

He hadn’t tried that, had he? He’d been spending all his time asking the room to show him what Malfoy was doing. But he hadn’t tried thinking _like Malfoy_. Maybe he could pretend that _he_ had something to hide. Maybe he could pretend that he, like Malfoy, needed a secret place to hide something forbidden. That might work. 

No, it _would_ work. He was sure of it.

What a lucky thing to have thought of. 

He should tell Severus.

  
  



	6. Liquid Luck

“Good evening, my love,” Harry announced brightly as he appeared in Severus’ quarters. “What a sight for sore eyes you are.” He shrugged out of his invisibility cloak with a dramatic flourish and tossed it over the back of the sofa.

“Well,” Severus answered, raising his eyebrows. “You’re in a good mood, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve had an excellent night.” Harry started toeing off his shoes, and Severus frowned at him.

“Are you drunk?” he asked. 

Harry scoffed. “No, of course not. I only get drunk with you. I’d care for a nightcap now, though.” He took something out of his pocket, put it with his sneakers, and then plopped down on the sofa and grinned. If he wasn’t drunk, he was certainly high on something.

Severus stood in front of him and took hold of his chin to look into his eyes.

“You’re not sober, though. What have you taken?” Harry opened his mouth like he was going to bite Severus’ hand and snapped at the air. 

“CHOMP!” he said, and then laughed as Severus jerked his hand back. “I’m fine. Do you have champagne?” 

“I won’t give you anything at all unless you tell me what you’ve taken.”

Harry sighed like that was an outrageous demand and rolled his eyes. “You’re no fun, _Severus,”_ he said. “I took Felix Felicis. Happy?”

“Felix Felicis?” That would certainly cause just this sort of behavior. “Where did you get that?”

“I won it. First day of term. Used your book to make Slughorn swoon over my Draught of Living Death, didn’t I? I came to say thank you!” He laughed again. “I probably have less than an hour of incredible luckiness left so I thought I’d come down here. Spend it with you.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Champagne?”

“That is supremely unattractive,” Severus drawled back at him, crossing his arms. “You don’t need Felix Felicis to get anything from me, Potter, and I won’t lay a finger on you until you’re back to normal.”

“Oh, he’s _Potter-ing_ me again. Sad.” Harry pouted, but then grinned again. “Maybe Felix knows what I’m into and is making me extra irritating so you do something terrible to me. What do you think?” He blew Severus a kiss, and Severus was immediately quite sure that he was right. That was how Felix Felicis worked. It illuminated one step of the path at a time. Harry probably had the urge to come down to the dungeons first, and then, seeing Severus, had the urge to annoy him. And Severus was, indeed, annoyed. And, in his annoyance, rather did want to do something terrible to him.

“It’s working,” Severus growled, seizing the front of Harry’s shirt and jerking him back to his feet. Harry gasped and flushed. “What a lucky boy you are, to have someone like me to give you what you want. Any requests?”

“Oh-” Harry’s hands came up to his wrists. “Yeah, actually, I do have a request. How about you tie me up and use me like a toy?” He smiled, and it was positively _radiant._

Severus blinked at him. 

“You’re depraved,” he said, pushing him backwards towards the bedroom. “Marry me.”

“Don’t think I _won’t,”_ Harry laughed as he bounced back onto the bed. “Ask me on my seventeenth birthday. We can hyphenate.” Severus pointed his wand at him and vanished his clothes, and then flipped him onto his stomach. 

“Hands,” he said, and Harry, giggling into the sheets, put his hands behind his back. “I'll make you stop laughing,” Severus warned, but Harry only laughed harder and flailed his legs, so he pinned them down with his knees. Then, he held Harry’s forearms together behind his back, waved his wand, and summoned a coil of heavy leather to wrap tight around them. Harry’s fingers flexed where they were trapped and he wiggled, and Severus gave him a hard swat on the thigh and pulled him to his feet. Holding him still, he summoned a collar around his neck, and a strap to attach it to the restraints on his arms. 

“Ooooh,” Harry breathed, leaning back against him. “I like that a lot. How about my legs? ‘Cause you know I’m gonna struggle.”

Severus shoved him back down, face first, and kicked his ankles apart. Harry yelped and his whole body turned pink, but he started giggling again almost immediately.

“Stay,” Severus said, and summoned a pair of straps for his ankles, and then a long, sturdy pole to go between them. He separated Harry’s feet a little further to accommodate it, hooked it all together, and then stood back to look at him. “Color?” he asked. Harry shifted a little, pulling against the straps, and then against the bar holding his legs apart, and then, finally, when he found he couldn’t move, lifted up onto his toes. 

“That’s green,” he said, peeking at Severus over his shoulder. “I didn’t know you liked leather, though. You should have said something earlier.” Severus gave him another little smack for that, and Harry gasped, and tilted his hips up like he wanted more. “What about my mouth, though?” he asked. “What about my unforgivably irritating _mouth?”_ And… he started giggling again. Severus leaned over him to pin his head down. 

“I like your mouth,” he hissed into his ear. “I’d hate to muffle the sounds you’re about to make.” Harry made a sound right then, actually. A good one. 

“I bet I look hot like this,” he said, and suddenly, he was not laughing. “I bet you’re thinking about making me scream.” 

He did, and Severus was. He stood back, summoned a rattan cane, and tapped it lightly against Harry’s skin. “I am thinking about making you scream,” he said. “I’m thinking about making you scream in a couple of different ways, actually.”

“Oh, _yes,”_ Harry said, and in his tone Severus could hear that he would probably like to spread his legs, if they hadn’t already been held further apart than could possibly be comfortable. “I like it when you _make me.”_

Severus looked at the cane in his hand, and, touching his wand to it one more time, added a little tuft of feathers to the handle. And then he gave Harry a sharp strike, right across the ass.

“Color?” he asked again.

“Come on, you know it’s green,” Harry answered back.

“I like to hear it, though, don’t I?” Severus murmured, and hit him again, a little harder.

 _“Fuck,”_ Harry gasped, his trapped hands flexing. “Green. Green. More. Mark me up.” 

“Oh, I will,” Severus said, giving him another two. And then one more, very hard, just in the same spot. Harry jerked in his restraints and cried out. “Mm. Tell me again - why should I gag you? Listen to _that.”_ He did it again, and Harry yelped again and cursed fluently. “What a filthy mouth you have.” 

“Filthy,” Harry breathed. Severus hit him. “Oh _\- fuck.”_ And then, as Severus traced the marks with the feathered end of the cane, he said it again, but higher. _“Oh - f-fuck - ”_

“Do you like that?” Severus asked softly, brushing the tuft down the back of Harry’s thigh with a touch so light it was hardly even there. Harry gasped, and tensed, and goosebumps erupted all over him. “Mm.”

“Oh, god,” Harry whispered. “That’s - ” He broke off as Severus hit him again. “Severus - FUCK-”

“Do you want to be able to sit down tomorrow?”

“No,” Harry answered. “Destroy me.”

“What an angel.”

Severus gave him another six hard strikes, listening to him pant, and curse, and cry out, and then soothed the marks again with the soft, downy feathers. 

“Color?” he murmured. 

“G-green,” Harry choked out. Severus replaced the feathers with his palm, and he moaned, and his hips jerked towards the mattress. “Oh - green - green.”

He was like a drug, really. Addictive, and disabling. An _obsession._

“You want me to fuck you now, is that it?” Severus asked. “You want me to fill you up?”

“Oh, _yes,”_ Harry said at once. “Please. Please, fuck me. I’ll beg - I’ll - do whatever you want-” He moaned and twitched as Severus reached between his legs to feel how hard he was. And he was _hard._

“You just love punishment,” Severus breathed, tossing the cane onto the bed as he began undoing his belt. “You just love being _put in your place.”_

Harry tilted his hips up again and whimpered, and his shoulders flexed like what he really wanted was to cover his face. “Only - by - you,” he gasped. “No one else - could - make me - like _this.”_

“Oh, I know,” Severus began, withdrawing his wand, thinking of Harry refusing to bow before the Dark Lord even in the face of his certain death. Harry Potter only got on his knees if that was where he wanted to be. No one on earth could make him do _anything_ that he didn’t want to do. “If you hadn’t made that so clear from the outset, I would never have dared.” He cast the usual preparatory spells, and, as usual, Harry reacted with such gorgeous transparency that it was almost unbearable. “Someone like you is not easily put on the _floor.”_

 _“Fuck me - please, please, Severus - please - ”_ Severus pressed a kiss to his spine, above his trapped arms, and circled his fingers around his entrance, but did not penetrate him.

“Beg,” he breathed.

“I _am_ begging,” Harry squealed, resisting against his bonds and tossing his head.

“I’ve heard you do better, though,” Severus hissed, pressing his fingertips so lightly against him that Harry’s whole body flexed back to try to get more, and he had to plant his foot on the bar between his ankles to hold him down. “Beg,” he repeated. “Beg me.”

“Oh, _GOD - ”_ Harry began breathlessly. _“Please - Sir - please - I need it - I need it - so - bad - please please - PLEASE - ”_

Well. 

That was a lot better, wasn’t it? 

Severus gave him two fingers, and Harry almost sobbed with relief. “Oh _yes,_ Severus - _please -_ ”

“You’re just desperate for it, aren’t you?” Severus asked, sinking his fingers in to the knuckle. “Look at you.”

“Yes,” Harry moaned. “Look at me, _please.”_

Severus did look at him. Pressing his face into the bedclothes, his legs straining against the bar, his skin pink and hot from his shoulders down to his hips, and his ass bruising nicely from the cane. 

“You’re perfect, do you know that?” he breathed, withdrawing his fingers. “You’re so fucking perfect its _painful.”_ Harry pressed his lips together and his hands clenched into fists. “You are,” Severus continued, holding him steady with one hand as he lined himself up. “You’re a fucking _heartbreaker._ Like a fantasy come to life. Like I dreamed you, and you appeared.”

Harry’s mouth opened as Severus began to penetrate him, and there was an interesting delay between his obvious intention to make noise and his apparent ability to. And then, finally, as Severus paused about half-way inside him, a cry tore itself out of Harry’s mouth that was so uninhibited, and so shameless, that Severus lost control of himself for the split second it took for his hips to jerk forward, hard, all the way to the base. He froze, afraid it was too much at once, but Harry dug his forehead into the mattress, panting, and pressed back against him like he wanted more. Why apologize? He _liked it._

“Perfect,” Severus said again. “You’re _perfect.”_

“Stop talking and _fuck me,”_ Harry demanded, and Severus pressed his head harder into the bed, and held it down.

“Quiet,” he growled. “If I want to praise you, I will. And you’re going to _take it_ like you take everything else.” Harry whined, but Severus ignored it, and began dragging his hips back and then snapping then forward. “You take it, Harry. _Take it.”_ Severus could feel the heat of his skin, like concrete in the summer sun, and he wanted to _wallow in it._ “Take my devotion like you take my cock. All the way.” He pressed another kiss in between his shoulder blades, and then bit down. Harry opened his mouth again, and Severus thought maybe he was going to argue, so he covered it, and then slid two fingers between his teeth. “Take it,” he said again, into his ear. _“Take it.”_ Harry moaned around his fingers, and Severus pressed them harder into his mouth. _“Fuck -_ I love you _.”_ He sank his teeth into Harry’s shoulder, and thrust his hips forward, and when Harry cried out again, he could feel it as a vibration against his hand. And then Harry’s lips closed around his fingers and he started to suck, triggering an unexpected rush of heat through Severus’ body so intense that he immediately knew he was about to come. And _imminently._ And there was no way in hell he was going to be able to hold it back.

He withdrew his fingers, ignoring Harry’s gasp of protest, and took hold of his waist with both hands to yank him back into his thrusts as they abruptly became desperate.

“Oh _fuck -_ ” Harry sobbed as Severus pounded into him. “Give it to me. Oh _yes - ”_ he turned his head to keep his words from being lost in the bedclothes. “Give it to me. _Give it to me. Yes, yes - ”_

_Merlin. What a degenerate -_

“Harry _\- god - ”_ That was it - he was coming - and it felt like _forever -_ pulse after devastating pulse of pleasure tearing through him. And then, apparently in reaction to the sound he was making, Harry cried out, too, and his hips stuttered forward against the mattress.

“Oh, _Jesus,”_ he gasped, curling forward, straining against the bar holding his legs apart. “I’m gonna - ” And Severus, feeling his body contract and release twice in quick succession, knew that he was on the very edge - _millimeters_ from release - just like this. So, with his last ounce of strength, he stomped down on the bar to hold him still, and kept fucking him, even as he started to soften - angling his strokes, just a bit - _more_ \- and Harry’s hands spasmed where they were tied with an almost hysterical wail. “Oh, fuck, fuck - ” he choked out. “Oh, _fuck - Severus - oh - f-fuck- ”_ His whole body went taut, trembling, shaking, like he was about to break apart - And - he - 

_Collapsed._

Severus was seeing spots. 

Harry had just gotten off from nothing but the cock inside him, and _that_ -

“Merlin, I didn’t even - _touch you,”_ he breathed, unlocking his hands from around Harry’s waist with no small effort and falling over him. _“Fuck._ That was -” _HOT._ He pulled out and dropped his head forward to rest on the small of Harry’s back, trying to catch his breath. “I didn’t even touch you.”

“I feel - like you did,” Harry panted. “Touched me all over.”

Severus let out a single shallow _ha_ against Harry’s skin. “Prostate orgasm,” he murmured. “How lucky.”

“What?” Harry said, his voice almost slurred.

“I bet that felt good,” Severus answered, retrieving his wand.

“Still kinda - does.” The restraints vanished, and Harry slid to his knees at the edge of the bed as his arms and legs were unlocked. “Ow,” he whispered. _“God.”_

“No need to address me like that,” Severus answered, casting the cleaning charms. “Up you get.” He tugged Harry up off the floor and pushed him back onto the bed. He was absolutely limp. “I think I pounded the luck right out of you. What do you think?” 

“Oh,” Harry murmured, sprawled out on the mattress. “I think - you pounded the fucking _soul_ out of me.” Severus lay down next to him, pillowing his head in his hands, and Harry turned to look at him. “I know I don’t have very much experience, but I’m starting to get the impression that you are an excellent lover.” 

Severus snorted. “Starting to?” he asked. “How offensive. There are many things I cannot give to you, Harry, but orgasms are not one of them.” 

“I seem to recall you threatening me with _two,”_ Harry answered, arching back into a full body stretch and flexing his fingers and toes. 

“The night is young,” Severus said, running his knuckles down Harry’s ribs. “It’s hardly even midnight. There was a time I could only have you in the small hours of the morning.” 

“Mm,” Harry agreed, and then shied away. “That tickles.” Severus turned onto his side, and pressed a slow, sensual kiss where his hand had been. 

“Apologies,” he murmured, doing it again. “Wouldn’t want to overstimulate you.”

Harry laughed gently. “No, we wouldn’t want that.” Severus hummed in agreement and kissed him again, this time on his chest, over his heart.

“Now that I’ve satisfied you once,” he began. “Care to tell me why you took Felix Felicis in the first place?”

Harry sat up so suddenly that Severus was knocked back.

“Oh, shit!” he gasped. “I have to meet with Dumbledore! _Shit_ \- Is the floo still linked?” 

“What?” Severus asked, startled. “Why?”

Harry scooted off the edge of the bed. “Where are my clothes?”

“I vanished them,” Severus said, sitting back against the pillows. “You’ll have to put on something else for your walk of shame.” 

“Pff,” Harry scoffed. “I’m not ashamed. I’ll wear a sign. You think I care?” He gestured at the closet and a wild assortment of outfits flew to him. He seized a pair of jeans and started pulling them on. “Dumbledore obviously knows you’re fucking me.” Then he stopped with a sweater half-way over his head, and looked at Severus, naked on the bed. “He does know that, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” Severus answered. Harry held his eyes for a moment.

“The lot of you should probably be fired,” he said, pulling the sweater down over his naked chest, and stooping to pick out a pair of mismatched socks.

“Probably,” Severus answered. “But then who would be here to sow chaos in your life?”

“Lord knows I need more of that.”

“Who will bring you to transcendent states of bliss, then?”

“You’ve raised my expectations so impossibly high no one else could ever satisfy me. Thanks for that.”

Severus rolled his eyes, but really he was pleased. “You aren’t going to tell me why you have to meet with Albus, are you?” 

“Nope,” Harry answered. “But I will tell you that it’s something good. And I’ll come back afterwards, if you want me to.”

“You know I want you to. I did promise you another, didn’t I?” Severus said it to make him blush, and even after all of that, he did blush. “Go, then.” 

Harry raked his hand through his hair, trying to neaten it, but somehow that only made it look more like he’d just been mercilesly railed. “Any marks?” he asked. 

“Not visible ones, no. Though you do look quite… disheveled.” 

“I always look _disheveled_. I’ll be back in a bit.” He turned to leave, but then stopped in the doorway. “Oh, and Severus,” he added, looking over his shoulder. “Don’t think I forgot you proposed.”

“Don’t think I didn’t hear you accept,” Severus shot back. Harry just grinned at him, and went into the living room. 

Severus could hear the rustle of him putting on his sneakers, and the fire as it ignited, and the sound of him fiddling with the tin of floo powder. 

_“Dumbledore’s office,”_ Harry called, and then there was the whoosh of him whirling away.

Gone. 

Severus stayed where he was for a while, thinking.

What could Harry possibly have needed to do for Albus that would require something like Felix Felicis? One would have thought that Albus was asking quite enough of him, expecting him to carry the war on his shoulders, and then to finish it with his casket. 

And then he remembered that Harry wanted champagne, and got up to send for some. At least whatever had happened was something good. Small victories needed to be celebrated, these days. 

***

“Good gracious, Harry,” Dumbledore said in surprise as Harry tumbled out of his fireplace. “To what do I owe this very late pleasure?”

“Sir,” Harry began, getting to his feet. “I’ve got it. I’ve got the memory from Slughorn.” He pulled out the tiny glass bottle and held it out. For a moment, Dumbledore just stared at it, stunned, and then his face broke into a wide smile.

Harry got the answer to his question almost immediately. How many Horcruxes could one person make? Six. 

At _least._

And after the impaled diary, and the broken ring, at least four remained, with Voldemort's own mutilated soul as the last piece of seven. Seven, the most powerfully magical number. The diary, the ring, the cup, the locket, the snake, Voldemort himself, and what else? Something of Ravenclaw’s, or Gryffindor’s, maybe. But that, Dumbledore didn’t know. 

And then, the prophecy. The _Power the Dark Lord knows not_. Dumbledore had always told Harry that power was love. Not the wandless magic, or the intention stuff that Severus said was so rare, or anything else. Just his capacity to love, undiminished by his painful childhood, and all his subsequent losses. And even though that sounded insane to Harry, Dumbledore was so adamant that he tried his best to listen. He listened as Dumbledore told him that the prophecy didn’t mean anything at all, really, except that Voldemort himself took stock by it. That by killing his parents, Voldemort had instilled in him a furious desire for revenge, and in so doing, had created his own worst foe.

“Imagine, please, for just a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy. How would you feel about Voldemort, now?” Dumbledore asked, leaping to his feet and beginning to pace around his office with almost maniacal energy. “Think!”

Watching him in such agitation, Harry thought about his mother, and his father, and Sirius, and Cedric, and then he thought of Severus, offering up his life to the cause. A flame seemed to leap to life inside his chest, almost burning him with it’s ferocity. 

“I’d want him finished,” he said. “And I’d want to do it.”

Dumbledore was right. The prophecy didn’t mean anything. Voldemort had given it it’s only meaning when he’d killed Harry’s parents, and that was all. Voldemort had created him, really. He’d cut the wound into Harry’s life that made him who he was. And sitting there in front of Dumbeldore’s desk, Harry had never before felt so sure of what he had to do. He had to track down the fragments of Voldemort’s soul, one by one, and destroy them. And then he had to cut off Voldemort’s head, and bring it to Severus on a platter. No prophecy had put that need in him. That was _his._ And he was going to do it. 

He was going to bring Severus Tom Riddle’s head, or his heart, or his bones, or whatever was left of him. And that would be the end of it.

One bit at a time. He was going to cut Voldemort to pieces. 

***

Harry didn’t ask to be called. He just floo’d back from the Headmaster’s office like he didn’t give a single fuck whether Albus knew he was going to spend the night in Severus’ bed or not. And maybe he didn’t. And he shouldn’t, really. No reason to fritter around when Albus already knew what was going on. 

He still didn’t know how to floo without ending up on the floor, though, which Severus thought was pretty endearing. 

“Welcome back,” he said as Harry got back to his feet. “Champagne?”

“Oh,” Harry answered, brushing soot off his clothes. “Is my Felix still working?”

“No,” Severus said. “I just like to please you, don’t I?” Harry took the flute he was offered, and sat very carefully on the sofa. “How did you like the cane?”

“I liked it,” Harry answered. “It hurt a lot. Cheers.”

They drank the whole bottle, and then opened a second, and halfway through that one, Harry straddled Severus and kissed him, and then whispered into his ear.

“I’m going to win the war, you know.”

“Are you?” Severus asked, sliding his hands down from Harry’s waist to his hips.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. “I’m going to win and I’m going to bring you Voldemort’s blackened body.”

“And when did you decide that?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Such confidence,” Severus murmured, leaning forward to press his lips to Harry’s neck. “What makes you so sure?”

“Dumbledore told me that my greatest power is love,” Harry began. “And I think he’s right. Because I love you, and loving you makes me want to tear out Voldemort’s spine through his weird snake nose.”

Severus laughed.

“That is very violent.”

“So are you.”

He picked Harry up and took him right into the bedroom. And in the bedroom, he got on his knees and sucked him off, and then laid him on his back, and fucked him again. And looking into his eyes like that, Severus could almost believe that Harry really would win, in the end. That he was strong enough, daring enough, and fearless enough to survive when it really mattered. That Harry would be the last man standing, and Severus would be able go to him, and claim him openly, in the ashes of whatever battlefield they found themselves in. That, someday, Severus would be able to love him at his leisure, instead of trying desperately to crush a full lifetime into this one, precious year. 

Looking into his eyes, Severus could almost believe all that. He could almost believe that Harry Potter was invincible. Untouchable. A supernatural creature of such unspeakable loveliness and power that nothing could ever take him away if he didn’t want to go. That Harry would be able to choose, and that he would choose to stay. Here, with Severus, where he belonged.

They fell asleep almost immediately after, wrapped up together, with no need for potions, or special breathing, or meditation, or anything else, and they slept through the night and well into the morning. It was nearly half-past nine when they woke up, in fact, and Harry had missed his first period, and Severus was already late. 

And it was worth it.

  
  



	7. Trigger

Hermione was very cross with him when he showed up in Charms after having missed Transfiguration, but she cheered right up again when he told her everything he’d accomplished. She and Ron were both very satisfyingly impressed by the way he’d gotten the memory out of Slughorn, and were positively awed when he told them about Voldemort’s Horcruxes, and how, in the end, Dumbledore had promised to take him along to destroy the next one he found. So awed, in fact, that neither of them asked why he hadn’t come back at all the night before. So, he didn’t have to lie. 

There were a few more happy accidents that could be laid at the feet of Felix Felicis, too, not just a night of the best sex Harry had ever had in his life. Lavender had broken up with Ron - _finally -_ after she’d seen the three of them leaving the boy’s dormitory together. Harry’d been hidden under his cloak, so she’d thought Ron and Hermione had been up there alone together. And she had, apparently, exploded.

The final stroke of luck was the triumphant return of Katie Bell, back from St. Mungo’s, returning Harry’s Quidditch team to its former glory. And they were _glorious._ The whole team was so glad to have Katie back that they flew spectacularly, and Harry was buoyed by the idea that, even though they’d been brutally stomped by Hufflepuff at their last match, they still might have a shot at the cup. If his team stayed as motivated as they were right then, they might even have a good chance at winning. Or, at least, not coming in dead last.

With all these preoccupations, then, it took Harry a while to get an opportunity to try out the idea he’d had walking back from Aragog’s funeral. But finally, one Thursday afternoon, he checked his map and saw that Malfoy was in the library, and decided to have a go. So, he snuck off to the seventh floor corridor, steeled himself, and began to pace.

 _I need to see Malfoy’s hiding place_ \- no dice.

 _I need to know what Malfoy is hiding_ \- nope.

 _I need to see Malfoy’s secret -_ no.

Harry stood still and thought. What _exactly_ had occurred to him with the help of Felix? Don’t make it about Malfoy. Pretend _you_ have a secret. Well, Harry had a lot of secrets. What could he ask for? He thought for a while, and then he started to pace again. 

_I need a place to hide my bracelet,_ he thought. _I need a place to hide my bracelet. I need a place to hide my bracelet._ Three times, just like that. Then he stopped, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. There it was. The door. Right there, in front of his face. 

His fingers trembling with excitement, he opened it, and stepped inside.

He gasped. 

He was standing in a room the size of a large cathedral, with high, sun-drenched windows, and laid out before him was a veritable hoard of stuff. It was like a city of forbidden things - stacks and stacks of what must be the secrets of generations of Hogwarts inhabitants. There were alleyways and streets bordered by teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture. There were thousands upon thousands of books, no doubt banned, or graffitied, or stolen. There were winged catapults and fanged frisbees, some still managing to hover halfheartedly over the mountains of other restricted items. There were potions bottles, broken and whole. There were hats, jewels, and cloaks. There were suspiciously large eggshells, rusty swords, and even a heavy, blood-stained axe. 

Harry spent over two hours exploring this treasure trove. He saw an enormous stuffed troll, a pile of strange, foreign gold coins, and a cluster of weirdly misshapen skeletons in a large, silver cage. He saw the broken vanishing cabinet Montague had been lost in the previous year, and a rather bashed-up suit of honor that turned its helmet to look at him as he passed. There was everything you could imagine in there. There were riches, and refuse, and everything in between. 

After a while, he sat down on a dusty old pouf and looked around. This might be where Malfoy was spending his time, or it might not. But even if it wasn’t, finding this incredible cache of secret things was surely a success. He’d have to come back later to explore more. Who knew what kinds of treasures might be hidden in its depths? Hermione would probably _die_ when he told her about this. 

He leaned back a little against the tower of stuff behind him, and immediately an avalanche of detritus rained down onto his head. There was an almighty THUD as a stone bust missed braining him by a hair. 

“Shit,” Harry whispered, leaping up. What a mess.

He did his best to put the pile of crap back where it had been, even though he thought it probably didn’t matter. The statue was too heavy for him to lift back onto the pile, but he did pick up a dirty old wig, the pelt of a puffskein, a pile of little pill-bottles, and a tarnished old tiara, and put the lot back up where it had been. And then, sneezing, he decided he’d probably been in there too long already, and picked his way back to the door. 

And outside the door was Draco Malfoy, with a first year Ravenclaw girl.

There was a moment of stunned silence as they looked at each other, before Draco whipped out his wand, and Harry threw himself to the side. Malfoy’s hex missed him by centimeters and sizzled into the wall, and Harry, knowing he wasn’t supposed to do anything wandless, drew his wand, too, and flicked it, thinking _Levicorpus!_ But Malfoy blocked his jinx and raised his wand to counter. Harry only had time to think that he looked quite demented, before barely deflecting his next curse. It was non-verbal, and Harry didn’t know what it had been, but something behind him exploded. 

Draco was not messing around.

Draco was trying to _kill him._

Harry brandished his wand, not even sure what he was trying to do, but then _for enemies_ popped into his brain.

 _“CRUCI - ”_ Malfoy screamed, his face contorting, and Harry screamed right back. 

_“SECTUMSEMPRA!”_

***

Harry sat, shaking, wrapped in a blanket on Severus’ sofa. Severus had cleaned him up, and even done it twice, but Harry still felt like he was covered in blood. He scratched at his arms, itching, tingling, staring into the middle distance as Severus and Dumbledore spoke quietly at the dining table. He’d almost killed Draco Malfoy. He’d almost killed him. And all that _blood._

“He told me Draco tried to cast the _cruciatus_.”

“I am not surprised. His behavior has only become more erratic in the last few weeks.”

“Well, what will you do about this?”

“About Draco? Just what we have been doing. But Harry will need to be disciplined, somehow, Severus. There were witnesses.”

 _“Disciplined_. I should have let that pureblood prince bleed to death.”

“Severus.”

_“What?”_

“He is a pawn. Try to remember the things you did at his age. Have some compassion.”

 _“Compassion._ I have compassion. Just not for _him.”_

Harry started to rock back and forth on the couch, clutching the blanket around his shoulders. Draco had looked so pale, and so _sick_. Voldemort was forcing him. Voldemort was torturing his _family._ And Harry had cast that horrific spell without even knowing what it did. _For enemies?_ God. What was wrong with him? 

“I have nothing but scorn for the Malfoy family as a whole, Headmaster.”

“And his wounds?”

“Harry called me within seconds. I was able to cast the counter-curse almost immediately. There may be some scarring, but he will recover fully. Unfortunately.”

“And how is Harry?”

There was a silence, and Harry instantly knew they were both looking at him. Staring at him. It was unbearable. He couldn’t - he couldn’t stand it. 

He leapt to his feet and sprinted to the bathroom.

“Not good,” Severus said over the sound of Harry vomiting into the toilet. He glared into Dumbledore’s eyes. “He is quite unwell, in fact.”

***

Harry stayed huddled over the toilet until he was absolutely sure there was nothing else that could possibly come out of him. And then, shaking, he dragged himself to his feet to rinse out his mouth and splash some water on his face.

Severus must have heard the water running, because after a moment there was a gentle tap on the door. 

“Harry?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

“I’m - fine,” Harry answered, and sat down on the floor. “I think I’m all done.”

“May I come in?”

“If you want.” He didn’t look up as Severus came in and sat down beside him on the floor. 

“He’s fine,” Severus said. “He’s going to be fine.”

“I didn’t know what that spell did,” Harry answered, still staring at the tiles under his feet. “I just - panicked. When he - ”

“I know,” Severus answered with a sigh. “Not one of my proudest inventions, that curse.” 

“Is Dumbledore still here?”

“No. He’s gone.”

“Am I going to be expelled?”

“No.” Severus leaned a little against him so their shoulders were resting together. “You are un-expellable. But you do have quite a lot of detention to do.”

“Detention,” Harry choked out. It was almost funny. _“Detention.”_

“I know,” Severus said. “It’s ridiculous, these games we have to play. You won’t be able to compete with your team for the cup, either.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about that.” It was true. He didn’t care. At all. About anything. All that mattered was the fact that he had cut Draco open. His face, his chest, and stomach, and blood had sprayed all over the walls, and the floor, and all over Harry. Quidditch? Detention? Those things belonged in a different universe. A universe that Harry was sure he would never be a part of again. 

“I’m sure you don’t,” Severus said, and then paused, looking down at Harry’s arms. “Stop that.”

“What?” Maybe Harry had never really belonged to that world. The world he belonged to was Voldemort’s world. Killing curses and monsters and violence and gore. Cedric Diggory dead on the ground, with his eyes open.

“You’re scratching. Stop.”

“What?” Murder and torture and splintered souls. Cursed jewelry. Poison. Hermione, unconscious in the Department of Mysteries. Neville’s broken bones. Sirius, through the veil. He should have stayed in his cupboard in Privet Drive. He should have died the night his parents died. He should never have come anywhere near Hogwarts. He was toxic. Ruined. 

Severus grabbed his wrists. “Harry. You’re scratching yourself. Stop it.” Harry’s hands twitched and he tried to pull them back, but Severus held him fast.

“Let go,” Harry said, trying to twist away. Severus shouldn’t touch him. He needed to get away from everyone. _“Let go of me.”_

“No,” Severus answered. “I know you’re upset that you hurt someone, but listen. That was self-defense, pure and simple.” He pulled hard on Harry’s arms and turned them wrist up so he could see the red furrows he’d scraped into himself. “And _this_ is not helping.”

“I’m - itchy - ” Harry gasped, trying to pull his hands back. “Let _go.”_

“You aren’t itchy, you’re in shock. Look at me, Harry. Look at me. This is what I’m trying to teach you. You have to calm yourself down.”

Calm? _Calm?_ He was never going to be calm again.

“You can’t - possibly - expect me to - ” Severus released his hands and took hold of his head.

“I do expect it,” he said fiercely. “We are going to go into your magic now, and you are going to make some cattails or whatever it is you do in there. Do you understand me?”

“I _can’t,”_ Harry whispered. He was tingling all over. His skin was _crawling._ He needed to get _out of here._ “I _can’t.”_

“You can. I’m going to help you. Come on.” 

He wanted to resist. He wanted to stay on the floor of the bathroom forever. But… Severus was giving him an order, and it was easier just to obey. It was always easier to just do what Severus told him to do. So, he took the hand he was offered, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. And, like he was sleepwalking, he followed Severus into the living room. Dumbledore was gone, as he’d said, and there was a fire dancing in the hearth. But Severus didn’t sit on the sofa. He sat on the rug in front of the fire, and pulled Harry down to sit between his legs, and Harry went. 

“Match me.” Severus wrapped his arms around Harry’s body and held him flush against his chest, and when Harry tried to start scratching again, he interlaced their fingers. It didn’t seem like he really knew he was doing it. “Match me, now. Come on. Inhale… and… exhale. Same as mine. There you go. What a good boy. Inhale… exhale.” Harry was breathing through his mouth, but that was alright. He was breathing. “That’s right. Very good.”

Severus could feel his heart beating wildly through his back, and he felt it, too, as Harry resisted against his own urge to struggle. He was sure Harry wanted nothing more than to run, but he wasn’t going to allow it. He wasn’t going to let Harry out of his sight, no matter what.

But Harry didn’t struggle, and he didn’t show sparks. And then, slowly, gradually, his body began to unlock. Stagewise, like he was forcing it. But that was ok, too. Severus had needed to force it, sometimes. Back in his twenties, he’d had to force it a lot. _Forcing_ his body to relax so he could get into the quiet darkness before he lost his mind.

“Very good. I can feel how hard you’re trying. You’re doing so well. Now, counting down from ten, Harry. That’s right. Ten, relaxing your feet…”

The progressive relaxation did not work at first, so Severus did it again, and when it still didn’t work, he did it a third time. And then, finally, Harry’s full weight was resting back on him, and his heart rate had slowed, and his breaths were smooth and even. And then they pulled in his magic, and Severus knew he had succeeded when a carpet of ghostly wildflowers appeared around their legs. 

He left Harry under for a long time, resting back against him, until Severus’ legs went to sleep and the wildflowers fluctuated twice: once into a bed of clover, and then into a constellation of lily pads, floating on the surface of a pond that wasn’t there. And then, finally, he began lifting him out. 

He counted very slowly up from one, leaving at least a full minute between each number, hoping not to startle him. Then, when Harry finally shifted in his lap and opened his eyes, the lily pads vanished. 

“Welcome back,” Severus murmured, kissing his hair. “You gave me quite a show.”

Harry blinked and sighed. “What time is it?”

“Oh, around eight, I think.”

“I’m tired. Can I have a Dreamless Sleep?”

“Yes, I think you’ve earned one. Would you like it now?”

“Yeah,” Harry murmured, turning his head a little to rest his temple against Severus’ chest. “I want to sleep.”

“I know you do. Come on, then. Get ready for bed and I’ll bring one to you.”

“Okay.”

Severus gave him a full-strength dose, and when he was sleeping, left him in bed to go to the hospital wing. Draco was due for a visit, now that Severus was confident Harry was alright. 

Inside the ward, he found Draco quite alert, and sitting up, with Pansy Parkinson practically vibrating with anxiety at his bedside. Severus sent her out, and, closing the doors behind her, cast _muffliato_ on the entrance to Poppy’s office. Then he drew up a chair, set it beside Draco’s bed, and sat in it.

“What?” Draco asked nastily. 

“What do you think?” Severus answered. Draco glared at him.

“I’m not going to spill just because you kept me from bleeding to death out in the corridor, _Sir,”_ he hissed. 

“Attempting to cast an unforgivable on Potter was a mistake, Draco. Especially at school.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“What, did Potter tell you that? Who knew you two were so _cozy.”_ Draco sneered at him. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how he’s looking at you. Like a fucking lost puppy.”

“I have my own orders, Draco. Don’t deflect.”

“I won’t tell you _shit.”_

“What are you trying to do in that room?”

“Aren’t you listening? Fuck off, Snape. I have it covered.”

“You should be more polite to me, whelp,” Severus hissed back, poking one finger into his chest. Draco flinched, and Severus wondered if he’d hit one of the healing wounds. If he knew where they were, he’d aim for one. “After what I did to your father one might think you’d have a healthier dose of fear.”

“What do I have to fear from _you?_ What can you do to me that _He_ can’t?” 

Severus grabbed the front of his hospital gown and jerked him forward into a sitting position, and Draco gasped and seized his wrist. “You’re going to fail,” Severus whispered. “You’re going to fail and I’m going to have to fucking clean up after you just like I always do.” Draco’s eyes were wide in his pale, narrow face, and Severus knew that he was operating entirely on fear. “So, you listen to me, you little brat. Confide in me, or don’t. But the Dark Lord will skin you alive if you lay a finger on Potter. That boy is His, as I think you are aware.”

“Seems like he’s _yours,”_ Draco breathed. Severus released him and he fell back against the pillows. 

“We do as we are told, don’t we?”

“I doubt the Dark Lord told you to interfere like this.”

“Oh, Draco. You poor thing,” Severus murmured, standing up and smoothing his robes down. “Don’t you know how expendable you are?” 

***

The next day the whole school was abuzz with what Harry had done to Draco. It seemed like everyone knew. Apparently Pansy Parkinson had been the first to visit him in the hospital wing, and she lost no time in vilifying Harry far and wide. The staff knew, too, and, as his head of house, McGonagall felt it necessary to call Harry out of the common room and subject him to fifteen highly unpleasant minutes of ruthless lecturing. She only seemed to falter in her tirade when she noticed his expression.

“Are you ill, Potter?” she asked suddenly, breaking off in the middle of a long monologue in support of detention every saturday for the rest of term. Harry just gazed blankly at her for a moment, and then decided that if he told her the truth she’d probably let him leave.

“I threw up a lot,” he said. “Snape says I’m in shock.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well. I’m glad you understand that what you did was wrong.” Harry didn’t respond to that, but just stared back at her until she sent him away. 

The whispers and the lectures were pretty bad. But the worst part, by far, was having to tell his team that he wouldn’t be able to play in their final match. No matter that Harry had never in his life cared less about Quidditch - the disappointment on their faces was torture. But there was nothing he could do. Ginny would be playing Seeker for him, and Dean would be taking her spot as Chaser, and that was it. And after it was over, he wouldn’t have to worry about the stupid house cup anymore. Or, at least, he wouldn’t have to pretend to worry about it.

Hermione lay the blame for what he’d done squarely at the feet of the Half Blood Prince, whom she was now fully convinced was a Dark Wizard of the worst kind. Listening to her diatribe, Harry thought about telling her the truth, but he let it go. Maybe when she cooled off he would tell her, but not now. Now, he just had to get through the day so he could go back to the dungeons. 

Severus called him at five-past ten that evening, and when Harry appeared, he had a towel laid out for him on the bed. So, Harry submitted to it as Severus massaged his shoulders, and back, and legs until he was quite limp, and then turned him onto his back and worked on his chest, and arms, and thighs. And when he did that, Harry was decidedly no longer limp, so Severus coaxed him onto his side and made love to him, as sweet, and slow, and tender as you please. 

Harry almost told him to stop, and Severus seemed to feel it, because he asked for Harry’s color. And Harry’s color was purple, so Severus kissed him, and told him that he loved him, and did not stop. 

It wasn’t so bad, sometimes. The gentleness. And Harry didn’t think he could take anymore excitement just then, which Severus seemed to feel, too. Severus always knew what he needed, really. 

And if Harry felt guilty for what he had done to Draco, he could tolerate it. Even if his punishment was no punishment at all. A few extra hours with Severus every saturday? It was a gift. 

***

That Saturday, while what seemed like the entire school poured out into the grounds for the final, critical Quidditch match of the season, Harry reported to Severus’ office. He knocked softly, and Snape opened the door for him, and then, once the door was closed, turned to look at him.

“I’m sorry you’re missing your match,” he said. 

“It’s ok,” Harry answered. 

“You’ll be able to hear the commentary from here,” Severus continued. “I saw you get knocked off your broom from my desk.”

“Did you?” Harry asked, and moved over to the window to look. It was true - he could just see the players assembling in the distance, and could hear the whistle, too. “How could you tell which one was me?”

Severus moved to stand behind him, and put one arm around his waist. “I could tell,” he said. Harry leaned back against him. 

“What’s my detention?” 

“Oh, I thought we might spend your first day watching your team from afar.” Harry laughed gently. 

“You’re so soft on me,” he said. 

“Oh, yes, critically weakened,” Severus answered, and kissed his hair. “But after it’s done, I have something new to teach you.”

“What’s that?” Harry asked, watching the distant players zoom into action.

“Now that you’ve quite mastered the self-hypnosis, I want to teach you how to carry it with you. Into… stressful circumstances.” Harry turned around in his arms. 

“Can we just work on it now? I don’t really want to watch the match.”

“No?” Severus asked. 

“No,” Harry answered. “Will you draw the blinds?”

Severus did draw the blinds, and they cast a silencing charm to keep out the roars of the crowd and the voice of the commentator, and then Severus cleared a space on the floor and conjured a few cushions on which to sit. Once they’d settled in, Severus explained to him how a physical cue at the very end of his time in the field could be used to call up the calm, serene state he achieved inside his magic, without being under. 

“If you associate this physical sensation with your hypnosis, you can have it whenever you like.”

“What sort of sensation?” Harry asked.

“A trigger point,” Severus replied. “Give me your hand.” Harry offered his left, and Severus took it, and pushed up his sleeve. “You can use either hand, but for our purposes, perhaps the left is the most appropriate. Symbolism can be important.” He touched Harry’s bracelet, and then turned his arm to expose the soft inside of his wrist. “Three finger-widths below the heel of your palm, just between the tendons. Here,” he touched the spot. It was only barely above the edge of the cuff. “You press down, like this,” he pressed his thumb into the point and held it. “Just before you leave your field, and just as you wake up. Five seconds. Just like this.” He counted, and then released the pressure. Harry flexed his fingers. 

“What does that do?” he asked.

“By itself? The point is meant to reduce anxiety and pain. But that is incidental. Our goal is to associate the sensation of pressure on that spot with your hypnosis. With enough repetition, simply holding the point will create calm. Or, at least, it will reduce your emotional response. Allow you to control it. To function, even under severe strain.”

Harry looked at his wrist, and then up at Severus. “Why didn’t you tell me to do that in the first place?” he asked. 

“We are moving through a progression, that’s all. Too much, too soon, and you associate the magic with stress and tension, defeating the purpose.”

“Hm,” Harry said. “When you did this meditation stuff, did you conjure things like I do?”

“What, like the flowers?”

“You said I did a frog.”

“Oh, yes, a butterfly, too. That first time.”

“Well? Did you?”

“No,” Severus answered. “I think it is your intention magic that is responsible for those phantoms. I would never be able to accomplish such a thing. It isn’t even conscious.” Harry twisted his mouth. “I mean it. Most of what you are doing now is so far beyond the magic of a typical wizard that it is hardly in the same category. Now, if you would.”

Severus sat and watched as Harry took himself through the breathing exercises, and the stages of relaxation, and then down into his magic. He was getting quite good at it - at least, when things were relatively calm. After a while, Harry’s eyelids fluttered, and he pressed his thumb into the point Severus had shown him, counted, and opened his eyes. 

“Like that?” he asked. 

“Did you do it while you were still under?” 

“Well, yeah. I mean. My inside self did it. Was that right?”

“Very good. Yes, that is just right. Now, again.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence. “Are we in a hurry?” Harry asked, searching his eyes. 

“Oh, yes,” Severus answered. “Who knows what Draco will try to do to you next. The faster you learn this, the less you will suffer from his flailing incompetence.”

“I guess,” Harry answered. “I’m not feeling quite as confident about my capacity for violence these days.”

“You asked me before if it is hard to kill, and I told you the truth. For someone like you, all violence is ugly. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of it. Draco is a boy, and after what I told you about his situation, it is understandable that wounding him was painful for you. The Dark Lord inspires much less pity, I think.”

“Yeah.” Harry looked at his hands. “So, you’re just going to watch me go under again? Isn’t it boring?”

“Boring? Certainly not. I always enjoy getting glimpses of what you’re doing in there.” Severus tapped his temple. “And, of course, I enjoy looking at you, no matter what you’re up to.” 

Harry smiled a little, and closed his eyes.

***

Harry found out when he left Severus’ office around lunchtime that, not only had his team won the match without him, they had absolutely stomped Ravenclaw into the dirt, and won the cup. They hadn’t needed him at all, and that was a relief. If they’d lost, he would have had to keep apologizing. And he was so tired of that. 

After the celebration, which lasted far longer than Harry would have liked, he closed himself in his hangings and told Severus about it.

 _[I heard]_ appeared in response. _[My Slytherins are very annoyed.]_

 _People care about Quidditch a lot,_ Harry thought.

_[Not everyone has as much on their minds as we do, Harry]_

_True. Is Malfoy back to classes? I haven’t seen much of him._

_[Only just. I understand he refused to leave the hospital wing until his face was back to normal. Very vain, that boy.]_

_Do you think he’s going to go for me again?_

_[No. He wouldn’t dare.]_

_What did you tell him?_

_[Don’t worry about that.]_

***

Harry worked on his hypnosis a lot, at Severus’ insistence. And for the next few weeks, he spent every Saturday sitting on the floor of Snape’s office, wandering around inside his field, changing things, sunbathing, and thinking of new animals to add. And then, when he was done, he’d press down on the trigger point on his wrist for five seconds, talk himself back up to reality, and then do it again. Five second press. And then he’d look up at Snape for his approval, and Snape would nod at him and tell him he’d done well, and Harry would wonder why he was making him practice so much.

After nearly a month of this, Severus decided to test him on it. 

“Alright, Harry,” he said. “Do you feel that you have associated your physical cue?”

“I guess,” Harry answered. “I’m not sure how to tell.”

“Well, today we shall see. I’m going to upset you, and you’re going to test it.”

“Uh,” Harry began. “How?”

“How am I going to upset you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to call up a negative memory in your mind. Nothing too terrible, I assure you. Not one of your near-death experiences. What do you think?” 

“Can’t we just wait for something upsetting to happen to me in real life? We probably won’t have to wait very long. It’s been like a month. Surely we’re due.”

Severus thought that was probably true, and he didn’t like it. Draco had done nothing, and said nothing, for all that time. And, as the summer approached, so too did the end of the window for anyone at all to kill Albus before the curse on his hand did it. Maybe that would be the outcome, in the end. Maybe, after all this worry, Dumbledore would die of his affliction, and Severus could stay here, at Hogwarts, with Harry. Another whole year to spend with him. What a gift that would be. 

But, no. Surely Albus had orchestrated things to allow for no other outcome than Severus’ horrific betrayal. Silly to imagine any other path forward. Suicidal to imagine it, really.

“I’d like to test you in a controlled environment,” he said. 

“You’re gonna do Legilimency on me, aren’t you?” Harry asked slowly. 

“With your consent, of course,” Severus answered.

“Yeah, alright,” Harry said after a moment. “Don’t hurt me too badly, though, ok?”

Severus moved to sit on the cushion in front of him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.”

“Ha ha,” Harry answered. “Take off your belt and I’ll sing you a different tune.”

“Red sparks will still make me stop. Are you ready?” Harry nodded, and Severus took hold of his chin to look into his eyes. “When you feel the anxiety, or the fear, or the panic, use the trigger. Yes?” Harry nodded again, and Severus held his wand aloft. _“Legilimens.”_

Instantly, Harry was transported back to Headquarters. To Remus, shouting in Severus’ face, and then Severus, covered in blood, on the library floor. He’d made a noise when Harry had blasted them apart. When he’d hit the wall - it had hurt him - Harry had forgotten he’d _hurt Severus_ \- And then it was gone, _whoosh -_ and Harry was suddenly back sitting cross-legged on the floor of the office, staring into Severus’ black eyes. He blinked hard, clutching at his chest, gasping for air.

“Harry,” Severus said, his voice forceful and hard like he didn’t expect Harry to be able to hear him. “The trigger.”

_Oh, fuck, what was he supposed to do? His arm. Right - shit -_

Harry pressed his thumb hard into the spot above his bracelet. And - 

It worked. 

Kind of. 

His heart was still beating hard, but he could breathe. And no bright spots in his eyes. He released the point, and fell forward onto his hands. 

_“Fuck,”_ he breathed. “I didn’t like that at all.”

“Do you see how it works, though?” Severus asked. “If you keep practicing, the association will strengthen, and, over time, that trigger will be able to reset you even in the worst times.” 

Harry looked up at him. “Please don’t do that to me again,” he asked. “I’ll practice. I will. But - don’t do that anymore.” Severus reached out to touch his cheek, and then, after a moment, pulled him off of his cushion and into his arms.

“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

And he didn’t. He didn’t do it ever again.

  
  



	8. True

As the Spring weather strengthened towards Summer, Harry did practice. He practiced as much as he could. He got so good at dropping into the field that he could do it in his classes without much trouble, although he was scolded quite severely during Transfiguration for apparently covering the floor with grass. So, he didn’t do it very much where other people could see. The trigger really did seem to work, too. He used it when he heard people whispering about him in the corridors, and when he had nightmares, and when he thought about the Horcruxes, or what he’d done to Draco. It really did work. At least, it worked when things were going pretty ok. He’d have to wait and see how well it handled something really fucked up. Because he was sure that something fucked up was coming. It always was. And Severus was acting sort of… touchy. Like he was worried, too, which made Harry feel like there was something hanging over his head.

Then, one sunny Saturday morning, while Harry was eating breakfast in preparation for a few hours spent in serene solitude in detention, something fucked up did happen.

He got a letter.

A rather scraggly-looking barn owl flew directly towards his seat, and at first Harry was quite sure that the poor bird was lost. He hadn’t gotten any letters at all since the start of the school year, other than one or two from Mrs. Weasley asking after his general health. Who would write to him? He had the bracelets to talk to Severus. Dumbledore, Ron, and Hermione were all here at school, and everyone else was dead. 

He took the envelope and ripped it open.

Oh.

Wow.

***

Harry didn’t knock when he showed up for his detention, which was rather unlike him as of late. Instead, he threw the door open so forcefully that it banged against the wall. Severus jumped in surprise.

“Harry! What is it? What’s happened?”

Harry didn’t answer. He just stomped over to Severus’ desk, slapped a piece of parchment onto it and then threw himself back into his chair. 

“I’ll kill him,” he spat. “I’ll fucking _kill him.”_

Severus looked down at the paper. It was a letter.

> _Dear Harry,_
> 
> _I am sorry for such a delay in writing to you after what happened over Christmas. I’ve been very busy with my work and have been unable to correspond. I know you’re probably angry with me for going to the Governors, but I hope after reading this letter you will understand why I did. Severus Snape is not a good man. He’s a snake._

Severus looked up at Harry, fuming in the chair. “Did you just get this?” he asked.

“Keep reading,” Harry answered.

“Do your trigger point and I will.”

“FINE.” He dug his thumb into his wrist and Severus turned back to the letter.

> _I know that you’ve been spending a lot of time with him, but there are some things you should know. He loved your mother, true, and, as a child, she loved him. But he was also responsible for her death. He was the one that overheard the prophecy and told it to the Dark Lord. It was he, in his hatred for James, that struck that terrible blow. You must know that no matter what he has told you, he is a masterful Occlumens and can lie better than anyone I have ever met. Do not be deceived. Dumbledore might trust him, but I do not. He is using you. And I think that he is hurting you terribly. Know that you can come to me, no matter what. I will be here for you, no matter what happens._
> 
> _I’m sorry for upsetting you at Headquarters, and at the Burrow, but I have your best interests at heart. Whatever he has promised you, whatever he has done to you, you can get out. If you need me, send for me, and I will keep him from hurting you ever again. You don’t need to tell me anything. I won’t even ask. Just know that I am here._
> 
> _All my love,_
> 
> _Remus_

Severus just stared down at this for a long moment as fury bubbled up inside of him. It almost felt like a volcano, brewing in his belly, seeping up his spine and into his head. After everything that had happened? After what Harry had said to him? How did he _dare?_

“Lupin certainly has a way with words, doesn’t he?” Severus said slowly. “I particularly like the part about me being a masterful Occlumens.” He looked up at Harry sitting there. “How did the point work?”

“Fine,” Harry answered. “But I don’t think it works on murderous indignation.”

“No, it isn’t meant to,” Severus answered. “He must think you don’t know anything.”

“What a fucking surprise,” Harry snarled. “Who does he think he is? Telling me that you heard the prophecy. I don’t think Dumbledore would like this letter very much. He probably doesn’t think I know that, either.”

“No, I don’t think he does. He probably assumes I haven’t told you.” Severus paused, looking down at Remus’ signature. “In fact, I think Albus would be quite angry about this.”

“I was going to answer him but I figured I should show you, first.” Harry was almost pulsating in his chair he was so furious. “In case I - make things - worse.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Oh, well, first I thought of writing, ‘ _f_ _uck you,’_ on the back and sending it right away, but then I thought maybe I should send something more along the lines of, _‘if you ever speak to me again I’ll knock out your teeth.’_ What do you think?” His knee was jiggling up and down.

“I think you should pretend you never even received it,” Severus answered. “Ignore it. Everything in here, you already knew.”

“How can I ignore it?” Harry burst out. “He’s so - so - _meddlesome_.”

“Meddlesome?” Severus laughed. “I really am rubbing off on you, aren’t I?”

“I’m serious! He thinks he can just - just - try to make me hate you?”

“Well, it didn’t work, did it?”

“No,” Harry answered angrily. “Of course not. What a prick, honestly. And what the fuck is, _‘you can get out,’_ supposed to mean?” He let out an inarticulate growl of rage. 

“He must think you don’t like me very much at all. Or that I’m, I don’t know… _hypnotizing_ you.” Harry laughed and then scowled like he was annoyed by his own laughter. “He’s right on a few other counts, here, too. I am an excellent Occlumens, and I am an expert liar, and I have, in fact, done terrible things to you.”

“Oh, that’s what I should do,” Harry said. “I should tell him that the bruise he saw on my back was from a merciless beating that I begged for. How do you think that would go over?”

“I had _mercy,”_ Severus drawled. “I was holding back.”

“I _knew it_ ,” Harry answered, and in his eyes Severus could see that mad little glimmer he got when he was thinking about their terrible things. “Maybe I should write a love letter to you and then just send it to him, instead. _Dearest Severus, thank you for all the orgasms. I would die for you. See you tonight on my knees.”_

“I thought you told me no more fist fights,” Severus shot back. “If you do that he’ll come right to my office to start up again.”

“He wrote the words, _‘whatever he has done to you.’_ I think he already knows I’ve been choking on your cock.”

Severus pursed his lips against the flush of color he could feel threatening in his cheeks. He didn’t think he would ever get used to hearing Harry use such filthy language. He rather liked it, he just still wasn’t used to it. “I doubt he has ever imagined you doing that. Or, if he has, he has some explaining to do.”

“Don’t we all,” Harry scoffed, running his hand through his hair. “Honestly my strongest reaction to this bullshit is that I really wish you could fuck me right now.”

“Not in my _office,”_ Severus answered. 

“You sucked me off on your desk. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember. But that was reckless. I was… overcome.”

“Oh, how romantic,” Harry said. “Overcome with the desire to suck me off?”

“Yes,” Severus hissed. “You were - looking at me.”

Harry started laughing again. “I look at you a lot.” 

“I think about sucking you off _a lot,”_ Severus countered. “No wonder Lupin is so convinced I’m fucking you. I’m starting to think we are doing a very poor job at pretending I’m _not.”_

“Maybe so,” Harry chuckled. “But Dumbledore is who matters, isn’t he? And he doesn’t seem to care at all. In fact, he seems rather to approve, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think he quite approves.” Albus absolutely did not approve. Severus knew that. The Headmaster just didn’t think it would matter, in the end. When Harry died, it wouldn’t matter who had done what to him. And no one would know. Just Severus. If he survived. 

“What is that face?” Harry asked suddenly. Severus froze. 

“What?” he asked.

“You just - made a face,” Harry repeated. “What did you just think of?”

“I was just thinking about Lupin. I’d have liked him to come here in person to say these things to you. So I could have … retaliated.”

“...lie,” Harry said slowly. And then he said it again, a little more firmly. “Lie.”

“Alright, that was a lie. I was worrying about the war, if you must know. Fat lot of good dissuading Lupin will do us if we _lose the war.”_

“Fair,” Harry answered. “Well, if you won’t fuck me over your desk, can I come tonight?”

“As if I’d tell you no.”

“Sometimes you do.”

“Not today I won’t.” Severus paused, and looked down at the letter one more time. “Shall I burn it?” he asked. “I don’t think you should respond.”

“Burn it,” Harry answered. “And I won’t.”

***

Severus called Harry down earlier than usual that night, at his insistence. Apparently he was still quite furious about the letter, and wanted Severus to remind him who he _‘belongs to.’_ That was what he said. And that was a pretty compelling argument, really. 

So, when he appeared, Severus did not try to banter or ask him how he was feeling. He just grabbed him, and pressed him to the wall. 

“Colors,” he demanded, and Harry gave them to him. “Tell me what you want.”

“Just fuck me,” Harry said. “That’s what I want.”

“Where?” Severus asked, squeezing his upper arms where they were held in his hands.

“In the bed,” Harry answered. “Like a proper lover with nothing to hide.”

Severus pulled him away from the wall and into the bedroom, and, like a proper lover, undressed him, and kissed him, and laid him down.

“You want my love?” he asked, pressing his mouth to Harry’s collarbone and then to his sternum. “Is that what you want?”

“Love me,” Harry breathed back.

“You say that like I have a choice,” Severus murmured. “Like you don’t already own my body and soul.” Harry’s fingers twisted into his hair and pulled him back up into a kiss. So, Severus kissed him. Like a lover. And, like a lover, he used his fingers to stretch him open so it wouldn’t hurt. And then, like a lover, penetrated him.

Because that was what Severus was, now. Harry’s lover, and nothing else. Or, at least, all the other things didn’t matter half as much.

 _“God,”_ Harry moaned, hooking his legs around Severus’ waist. “Who can say this isn’t righteous? That it - isn’t - _holy - ”_ He broke off as Severus pinned his shoulders to the bed. “Oh, _fuck -_ the way you make me _feel - ”_

That hit Severus like a crossbow bolt through the heart and he gasped aloud. 

“Tell me.”

“You - ” Harry began, digging his fingertips into Severus’ back. There was only the slightest suggestion of nails, and Severus suddenly remembered with visceral intensity how it felt to have Harry rake four bleeding wounds into his skin. “You make me feel like I’m not just - a - _tool._ That I’m - _oh, Merlin -_ not just my - _scar.”_

“Just a tool? Harry - You’re the whole world,” Severus answered, thrusting into him. “You’re so much more than - anything - I’ve ever - experienced _._ You’re like a - _religion.”_ Harry’s fingers dug in again and he lifted his head to bury his face against Severus’ neck.

“Do I make you feel good?” he asked. “I want to.”

“I didn’t even know what pleasure was until I first had you,” Severus answered. “I thought I knew but - I - was - so - wrong.” He dropped his head to rest on Harry’s shoulder, momentarily overwhelmed with the truth of it. “Before you - I was _colorblind.”_

“Oh, _god,”_ Harry moaned back. “I love you.”

“I wish I could show you what you mean to me. What it feels like to - be with you,” Severus broke off again as Harry’s legs flexed around him. _“Merlin -_ If I could, I - I’d let you feel everything. I’d -” He stopped suddenly. His body, and his voice, and Harry’s eyes opened. 

“What? What’s the matter?” 

Severus pulled back just enough to look at his face. “You want to feel what I’m feeling?” he asked. “Do you want that?” Harry’s eyes searched his, and Severus kissed his forehead as he continued. “I could show you. If you wanted me to, I could. There’s a - spell.”

“A spell?” Harry asked.

“Yes.” He looked into Harry’s eyes again, and where there had been some fear a moment before, now there was only trust. “You could feel everything.”

“Show me,” Harry answered. “Yes - I want you to.” Severus raised one arm and summoned his wand to his hand. 

“Tell me again,” he said.

“Show me. Show me.”

“Mm.” Severus pressed his lips to Harry’s throat, and then, with the tip of his wand held to his skin, he began to whisper. The incantation was rather long, and complicated, but he remembered it clearly. And when he was done, he looked up at Harry’s face to see his eyes roll back and flutter closed. “Feels good?” he murmured, starting to move again. “I know it does. You see now what you do to me. How you drive me _mad.”_

“Severus - _God -_ ” Harry broke off with a gasp and, between them, his cock immediately began to leak. At the sight of it, Severus let out his breath in a slow, controlled stream. If he didn’t focus he was going to finish too soon. Or possibly… immediately. _“F-fuck - ”_

“Oh, _yes,”_ Severus whispered. “Do you want more?” He began to move a little more firmly, sliding one hand underneath his hips to tilt them up, and Harry moaned desperately, curling his head up off the bed. He wanted to be kissed, so Severus kissed him, and with his other hand took hold of his cock, smearing the precum dripping from it and squeezing gently _._ There was a beat of silence, as Harry’s body seemed to struggle to absorb everything it was feeling, and then suddenly, Harry flung his head back against the pillows, violently breaking the kiss with a long, fractured, incoherent string of nonsense. 

He’d gotten off, just like that. Just fucking lost it, two seconds into feeling what Severus felt every time he so much as laid his hands on Harry’s body. _Two seconds._

Gorgeous. 

Severus went still, holding him through his aftershocks, and then, as Harry’s body went slack underneath him, he began to move again, and Harry’s eyes snapped back open, shocked. 

He could still feel what Severus was feeling, of course, even though he’d already come. He could still feel _everything._

“Oh, no, my love,” Severus murmured, kissing his cheek. “You’re not done. Not even _close.”_

He tried his best to live up to that - to make it last - holding his own satisfaction at bay until Harry was hard again, until he was begging for relief, and then, until he was almost weeping in frustration.

“Severus - ” he demanded, grabbing at him. “You’re a fucking _sadist - ”_

“I think you’ve said that before,” Severus answered, and pinned his head down with his kiss, thrusting his tongue into his mouth, and not allowing him up. The noises he was making were higher now, more desperate, as Severus’ own release threatened, tunneling the edges of his vision. But still, he held it back. “You see now how good you make me feel,” he murmured against Harry’s mouth, letting out a single, low moan. 

Harry dug his nails into his back. “Come inside me,” he gasped. “Please, let me feel it.”

“Oh,” Severus grunted, giving him a little more force, and covering Harry’s mouth with his hand. “I will. When I’m ready.” Harry tossed his head to the side to dislodge his palm.

“You want me to beg? I’ll beg. I’ll fucking _plead.”_

“It won’t work.” Harry flexed his body, contracting deliberately around him, and then he made the most excruciating noise Severus had heard yet. “Now you know how that feels, too,” he growled. “Do it again.” 

Harry did it again, and clutched him harder. “You like that?” he asked, and hooked his legs back around Severus’ waist, trying to lift himself up. “Let me get you off. Please, please, let me make you come. Please, let me make you come-”

Severus seized his throat and held him to the bed. “I said _no begging,”_ he snarled, and Harry’s eyes fluttered feverishly. “I’ll gag you. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Sir.” He stilled, and then his eyes went unfocused at the surge of pleasure that rolled through Severus’ body. It was _visible._ Severus could see his own pleasure mirrored in Harry’s beautiful face, so clearly it was almost painful.

“Better,” he said, relaxing his hand. “You’re so sweet like this. So _obedient._ Just taking what I give you.” 

“Oh, god - I want to - ” Harry began, but broke off.

“Please me?”

“Yes.”

“I know you do.” He snapped his hips forward, hard, just once, and then backed off again, moderating his force. “You always please me. You’re such a good boy.”

Harry opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and he closed it again, and swallowed hard. “Let me beg,” he said finally, and then, at the spike of arousal in Severus’ belly - “God, Severus, what is that? What are you feeling?”

Severus slid his hand into his hair and tugged his head back, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his Adam’s apple. “That is my love for you,” he breathed. “Beg, now. If that’s what you want.” He closed his teeth on Harry’s throat.

“Fuck me, please,” Harry gasped. “Come, let me feel you come, please - Severus - let me feel it - Come inside me - please - _please.”_ Severus growled ferally against his throat and obeyed him. He wouldn’t have been able to take much more, anyway. 

“As you - command,” he gasped as he passed the point of no return, and immediately Harry spilled against his belly. Hearing him cry out - and _whimper_ \- Severus buried his face against Harry’s skin. It was like he was trapped in it - trapped in his euphoria - coming and coming and _coming._ But then, through the blurry pleasure-haze in his brain, he felt Harry’s breath freeze in his chest - and - it must be the spell, but suddenly there were tears, hot tears against his shoulder, and Harry was gasping out his name, clutching at him, pulling on him, holding him close, like it would never be enough. And he _was_ \- he was _weeping -_ uninhibited, shaking with emotion, overwhelmed by whatever he had felt in Severus’ body.

Harry was _weeping._

What had he felt? What had Severus shown him?

He tried to pull back but Harry’s arms went rigid, and his legs hooked around him again, keeping him from moving.

“Don’t,” Harry cried. “Don’t let go of me!” His voice was ragged, and one of his hands fisted hard in Severus’ hair. “Don’t let me go. Don’t - _don't - ”_

It was the upwelling of fear inside him, and Harry’s resultant gasp, and tightening of hands that made Severus realize he’d never lifted the spell. He seized his wand from the bed and held it to Harry’s skin.

 _“Finite incantatem - ”_ he said at once, and Harry went limp, but his tears did not slow. “Harry.” Severus kissed his temple, and his cheek, wet with tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened - ” he pulled out and lifted his weight off of him, and then dragged him into his arms, against his chest. “Merlin, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did.”

But… maybe he did know. 

He did. 

It was the spell. What had he been thinking? Letting Harry in like that, knowing what he had inside of him?

“I’m sorry,” he said again, holding him closer. “Harry, I’m sorry.”

Severus had never used that spell on someone he loved before. And certainly not on someone for whom his love was so fraught. There had never been anyone like Harry, before. Lovers, maybe. But just bodies. Not like this. It had never occurred to him that there was more than physical sensation to be shared. And now look what he’d done. He’d dumped all of his agony straight into Harry’s body, all at once, with no explanation. 

Severus might be used to the intense pleasure and pain that he felt with Harry. The guilt, and sorrow, and despair, and hope, and fear, and desperate, desperate love - but Harry wasn’t used to it. It must have felt like a tidal wave to him. Like being dragged under. Like _drowning._

“Harry,” he said again, smoothing down the damp hair at his temples. “I love you. I love you.” Now that the spell was lifted, the weeping was passing, and he curled up in Severus’ arms, drawing up his legs. “I didn’t mean to - do that to you.” His hands came up around Severus’ back, pulling him in tighter, and Severus obeyed, and squeezed him.

“Is that - ” Harry began, and swallowed, taking a deep and steadying breath. “Did that come from you?”

“Yes,” Severus answered. _Right out of my very soul._ “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” 

“But… if that was yours… Do you… How - can you stand it?”

Severus sighed and pressed another kiss to his damp skin. He didn’t stand it, really. He suffered it. “I suppose I just…” _Look at you, touch you, hear your voice, and push it aside._ “I just do.” 

There was a long pause, and Severus could feel Harry trying to slow his breathing down - to make it even, and calm. He was succeeding, too. That was good. And then he felt Harry tucking in his arms, and was very sure he was using his trigger point. And that was good, too, really. Even though it made him feel sick.

“I didn’t do that on purpose,” he said slowly. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

Harry’s breath was quite calm, now, and Severus felt a fierce stab of pride at how far he’d come, and then was grateful that Harry couldn’t feel that, too. Harry sucked in one more long, slow inhale, and let it out very gradually. Then, when it was out, he spoke again. 

“Can I have a drink?” 

“Yes,” Severus answered, almost relieved to have something to do. “Shall I go now?”

Harry nodded, and Severus withdrew, casting the usual cleaning spells and putting on his dressing gown. Then, he went out into the living room to open a bottle of wine. As he poured, he heard Harry get out of bed and go into the bathroom, and then the shower turn on. He brought the glasses and the bottle out to the sofa to wait. 

Harry was in there a while. 

Long enough for Severus to drink most of a glass, and to thoroughly dissect himself, wondering - why? Why was he like this? Why did his touch always hurt? And if there was pain enough inside of him to spill over like that, why didn’t _he_ cry? Where were his tears, for Harry? After all of this, surely he had tears to offer. But they wouldn’t come. It was like he was empty. A desiccated corpse, walking around, wounding the people he loved. Like always.

When Harry finally came out, dressed in his nightclothes, he took the glass Severus offered him, sat in his spot on the couch, crossed his legs, and looked him right in the eye. 

“Severus,” he said, quite composed. “I want you to tell me why.” 

“Why?” Severus repeated, trying to sound composed, too.

“Yes.” Harry took a small sip, and then held his glass in both hands. “Why? Why is there so much pain inside of you? It isn’t guilt, at least, not all of it. You said it was love, but that was _grief._ And believe me - I know what grief feels like.”

“What is grief, if not love?” Severus answered, and then snapped his mouth shut. He felt torn open, and he needed to control it right now. Because he could feel the truth threatening behind his teeth, bursting to come out and join what he’d already revealed. And if he let it out, it would be a flood. An arterial spray of horrible truth.

_Control it. Control yourself._

“Love that’s been lost, maybe,” Harry said. “But I’m right here. You were still - you were still inside me when I felt that. Tell me why.”

“Potter - ” Severus began, but Harry cut him off.

“If you call me Potter right now I will throw this wine in your face.”

“Harry, then - ”

He cut him off again. “You’re about to lie to me. Don’t.” Severus took a deep breath, and, apparently at his expression, Harry shrank back against the couch cushions and turned his face away like Severus had hit him. “Don’t lie!” 

Severus held out his hand. “Harry-” _Think. Fix it. Fix it._

But, then, looking at Harry’s expression, and his body language, Severus realized that he could not fix it. There was no way to take it back, and he shouldn’t even try. He could see that it was too late to lie. It was way too late, and this was the moment, right now, to say whatever he was going to say. Whatever he could think of to soften the blow, he had to say it now.

“I won’t,” he began slowly. “I won’t lie. Just - listen to me. There is something - ” he steeled himself. “Something is going to happen. I will - have to do something. And I think… maybe soon. But… what I have to do… you won’t understand it.” Harry’s eyes were squeezed tight shut but he was listening. “You’ll think I’ve betrayed you. You’ll think - that - all of this was a lie.” Harry dug his thumb into his wrist. 

“No,” he whispered.

“Listen to me, Harry. Listen. You’ll think that I’ve betrayed you, but I won’t have. And I never will. When you think that, when you hate me, remember this, alright? I had to do it. I had to.” Severus wanted badly to touch him, but he didn’t think Harry would like it, so he stayed still where he was.

“What are you saying to me?” Harry asked, his voice so soft that it was barely a whisper.

“I’m saying - I’m saying that I can’t tell you what it is, but when it happens, you’ll know. And please, remember: I’ll never betray you. Never. I’d rather die.”

There was a silence, and then Harry opened his eyes and looked past him to the wall, his expression blank. “Dumbledore let you keep me so you could stay at the school,” he said. “He needed you to stay.”

Severus’ blood turned to ice. No, not just ice, _shards_ of ice. 

“Yes,” he said. “He needed me to stay.”

“War,” Harry said.

“War,” Severus answered. Harry still did not look at him, but stayed staring fixedly at the wall behind him.

“You promised that you’d never leave me.”

Hearing those words, Severus’ heart squeezed so painfully in his chest that he thought he might actually die of it. What a mercy that would be - to just… die. For this to finally be over. But then, he knew that they were nowhere close to the end. There was still so much to accomplish before either of them could be laid to rest. It was Dumbledore who had almost finished his life’s work. It was he who would be spared the pain of going on. 

He tried to imagine what Harry would do when Albus was dead. Surely he would never come to Hogwarts again, no matter where Severus ended up. It wouldn’t - wouldn’t be safe for him at the school, anymore. Nowhere on earth would be safe for him. Not ever again. 

The pain in his heart redoubled - became agony, became torture, and then, finally, subsided to numbness. Like a full-thickness burn.

“I think,” he began, “that it is you who will leave.”

Harry did look at him, then, and in his eyes there was a well of sadness so deep that it was like looking into the center of the earth. “You’ve been trying to get me ready,” he said. “You’ve been trying to prepare me.”

“Yes,” Severus whispered. 

“You’ve been trying to teach me how to live without you.”

“Yes.”

Harry’s expression crumpled, but then he smoothed it away. “I knew. I knew that’s what you were doing.”

“I’m sorry,” Severus answered.

Harry looked at the weave of the sofa cushions under his feet and pressed his thumb into his wrist. Then, he took a deep breath. “If I promise to forgive you for whatever horrible thing you’re going to do, I want you to promise me something, too.”

“Anything,” Severus answered at once, amazed that Harry could think his promises were worth even the dirt under his feet, now.

“Promise me that when the war is over, you’ll come find me. That we can be together, afterwards. No matter what.”

_I’ll bring flowers to your grave every single day if I’m alive to do it. Mountains of flowers. I’ll strip the whole country and bring them all to you._

Suddenly, Severus found that there were tears inside him after all, and he crushed them back. This was no time for him to be weak. The weakness could come later.

“I promise,” he said. “I’ll find you. No matter what.”

Harry nodded, still looking at the cushions. “Can I stay here tonight?” he asked. 

“I would not let you leave tonight even if you begged.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Harry whispered, and in his voice Severus could hear his despair. “I want to stay.”

“I know. I know you do.” And that was despair in his own voice, too, wasn’t it?

Severus took him back to bed, and, laying next to him in the dark, tried to tell him more. Tried to tell him how much he loved him. How much their time together had meant to him. But Harry wouldn’t hear it. He put his hands over Severus’ mouth.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “You’re trying to say goodbye to me and I won’t allow it.”

Severus pulled his hands away and kissed them. “No,” he said. “I’m not trying to say goodbye.” He was, though. “I’m trying to tell you that this year with you has been the most precious of my life.”

“Stop it,” Harry breathed. “Stop it.”

“You carry more weight in my mind than anything else on earth.”

“I don’t want to talk about this. Say something different.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me… tell me… about… after.”

“After the war?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know what will happen, after. No one does.”

“Then lie.”

“You want me to lie to you?”

“Yes. Lie.”

“Alright,” Severus sighed, and pulled Harry closer to tuck his head into the crook of his neck. He smelled like shampoo, and red wine, and skin, and home. “After the war… Once the Dark Lord is gone, and so too are all his servants… you will be regarded as such a hero across all the Wizarding World that you will never again be able to walk down the street without being accosted by the fawning masses.” Harry chuckled weakly, his breath warm on Severus’ chest. “People will bother you nonstop. It will drive you mad. And I - I will have to put defensive wards around our house stronger even than those protecting this school - just to keep the reporters away.” He paused, stroking his fingers through Harry’s black hair and imagining. “It will have to be unplottable. Far out in the country, with security jinxes in all directions. That way, you’ll be able to fly without fear of molestation. Depending on your preference, we might circle the perimeter in trees. Fruit trees. Or hedges. Or maybe a grove of threatening cacti… though they would need magical support to thrive here in Britain. Our neighbors will be so annoyed.”

“And what will you do?” Harry whispered.

“I?” Severus asked. “Why, I’ll love you, of course.”

  
  



	9. Red Means Stop

Harry spent the next three days in Severus’ rooms, absolutely refusing to leave for his classes until Severus left for his own, and then begging to be called back right after dinner. It was almost like Harry thought that Severus might disappear at any moment, and only keeping one eye on him at all times might prevent it. 

Calling him back down recklessly early each night, Severus wondered if maybe Harry was right - if keeping each other within eyesight would somehow prevent the calamity looming above them. If only there were magic like that in the world.

Some of the other Professors were looking at him now, too. Minerva, and Hagrid, and Slughorn, sometimes, and he wondered what he was doing to provoke it. Looking at Harry, probably. Looking at Harry like he loved him - which he did. Looking at Harry like he was spending all night kissing him - which he was. Or maybe it was Harry’s behavior that was raising the hackles of the staff. Because if Harry had been looking at him before, he was staring, now. Staring at him with such consistent intensity that Severus could almost feel it. Like a hand between his shoulder blades. 

But it didn’t matter. Harry could sit right in his lap at dinner and it wouldn’t stop anything.

***

Hermione was worried about him, Harry could tell. She was looking sideways at him at meals when she thought he couldn’t see, and trailed around near him in between classes. She seemed to have something to say to him - probably about Malfoy - and he had no desire to hear it. So, he avoided being alone with her as best he could. And she couldn’t get at him in the dungeons, anyway, which was where he was spending most of his time.

It was near the end of dinner one evening that she finally managed to catch him after he excused himself to the bathroom. He didn’t like it at all. It felt like being trapped. 

“Hey, Harry, wait,” she called. “I want to talk to you and you keep vanishing.”

Harry pressed his thumb into his trigger point and held it as he turned to look at her. Her eyes flicked down to his hands, and then back up to his face, and he wondered if she was going to ask. That would be a fun conversation.

“Sorry,” Harry answered. “I’ve been busy.” _Let me go back to the dungeons. I have to go to the dungeons._

“With,” she dropped her voice, “Snape?”

“Yes with Snape,” Harry hissed back. “Who else?”

“New magic?”

“Yeah.” _Let. Me. Go. I have to GO._

“Well, I won’t be long. I just - wanted to talk to you about the so-called Half-Blood Prince.”

“Oh, not again,” Harry groaned. “Will you please drop it? I didn’t mean to do that to Malfoy and the Half-Blood Prince didn’t mean me to do it, either. Just let it go.”

“I won’t,” Hermione continued. “Just hear me out and you can leave.”

“Fine,” Harry answered. “Be quick about it.”

Hermione looked rather wounded, but Harry didn’t care. She was way out of line with the Half-Blood Prince stuff, and his tolerance of it was lower than ever. “Now, I’ve been trying to find out a bit about who might make a hobby of inventing Dark Spells,” she began, and Harry rolled his eyes and scoffed but she ignored him. “And I know you think it’s a boy, Harry, but - listen - look at this.” She handed over a ragged piece of newsprint, yellow with age, and Harry took it. 

It was a picture of Eileen Prince, with the caption, ‘Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.’ She looked rather sullen, and cross, with black hair and a long, pallid face. Eileen Prince. Severus’ mother. 

Harry glared at Hermione and thrust the clipping back into her hand.

“I told you to drop it, Hermione.”

“But - listen. Her name is Prince! If her mother was a witch, and her father was a muggle, that would make her a half-blood Prince! Don’t you see?” 

Harry felt anger flare into life inside him. She was keeping him from getting back down to Severus because of the stupid book, because she thought the Prince was evil and was trying to turn Harry against him just like everyone else was. Just like _Lupin._ He glanced around. The corridor was empty - most everyone was still eating. 

“Yeah, I do see, Hermione,” he spat. “I do understand, but you _don’t._ Eileen Prince? That’s Snape’s _mum._ _His_ father was a muggle, and she was a witch. It’s _him,_ alright? It’s him. Severus is the Half-Blood Prince. It’s his book. It’s his magic. Now _PLEASE_ let me go down to the dungeons!” Whirling around, he slammed into the boys bathroom before she could so much as open her mouth. 

Inside, he leaned against the wall and touched his cuff.

_Call?_

There was no answer right away. He supposed it was hardly seven in the evening. Maybe he should go to the library to wait. Or maybe Hermione would be there. He didn’t really want to talk to her again just yet. Maybe he’d have to just stay in the bathroom for a while. But then, to his intense relief, his bracelet warmed.

 _[Just a moment]_ appeared. Just as he was reaching out to reply, though, the door opened, and Jimmy Peakes walked in. 

“Hey, Harry,” he said. “Hermione said you were in here. Are you ok? She seemed kind of upset.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Well, I’ve got something for you from Professor Dumbledore.” He held out a scroll.

“Oh,” Harry said, taking it from him. “Thanks, Jimmy.” He unfurled it, read it through, and his heart leapt in his chest. Dumbledore wanted him to come now, as soon as he could, and surely that meant he’d found a Horcrux. What else could it be? “Thanks,” he said again, and pushed past Jimmy and out through the door. As he jogged away down the corridors towards Dumbledore’s office, he touched his bracelet again and thought - _Nevermind. Dumbledore wants me. I’ll say when I’m through._

He ran up six flights of stairs, wanting to get there as fast as possible. But then, just when he was almost to the gargoyle-guarded entrance to the Headmaster’s office, he suddenly heard a scream and crash, and he skidded to a halt. He stood still, listening, and then heard another shout of outrage and turned to the left, only to see Professor Trelawney on the ground with a large quantity of sherry bottles. One of them was broken, and there was a strong smell of alcohol.

“How - dare - ” she wheezed, struggling with her many shawls. “The _nerve.”_

Harry hurried over to her and helped her up. “Professor! Are you alright?” He looked around, saw the tapestry of dancing trolls, and knew. She’d been in the room of requirement. “What happened?”

Professor Trelawney was shaken, but unhurt, and she had a story to tell. A story about a boy’s voice, and sudden darkness, and a rude ejection from her hiding place. 

But the voice in the room of requirement hadn’t been shouting, or screaming, or crying, or so she said. It had been _whooping._ Gleefully. And that meant that whatever Malfoy was up to - whatever _it_ was that he was doing - it had suddenly started going well, and he needed to tell Dumbledore. Right now.

***

What could the Headmaster want from Harry at such short notice? To ask to come down and then change his mind so fast, Harry must have been notified of Albus’ need for him right then. What could Albus want? Urgency was not good when it came to Albus Dumbledore. Severus had been called urgently by him before, and it had never been a lark. 

He started to pace, but then sat down instead. It was probably nothing.

***

Harry sprinted out of Dumbledore’s office at full tilt. He only had a few minutes before he had to be in the Great Hall with his cloak, and there was a lot he had to do. He didn’t care what Dumbledore said about the extra protection around the castle. If they were going to be away from the school, and Malfoy was celebrating in the room of requirement, he had to prepare his friends. Who _knew_ what might happen, now. Who knew what Malfoy had planned? It could be something else stupid, like the necklace and the poison, but Harry didn’t think so. He had a bad feeling.

Up in the common room, Ron and Hermione were sitting with their heads together, but they both leapt up as Harry hurtled through the portrait hole and up the stairs to the boy’s dormitory. They were still standing there, stunned, when Harry returned with his cloak, his map, and the little bottle of Felix Felicis. 

“Harry, what - ” 

“Shut up - listen to me,” Harry said shortly, thrusting the map and potion into their hands. “I don’t have much time.” He told them where he was going and why, but did not pause as Hermione gasped in horror and Ron tried to ask questions. He just plowed right over them to get to Malfoy. “No. SHUT UP!” He had to shout over Hermione more than once as she tried to counter. “I know it was Malfoy celebrating in the room. I _know it was him._ So don’t fucking argue with me! Just LISTEN.”

They didn’t want to take the Lucky Potion or the map from him but he refused to discuss it, and finally, they relented, looking scared. 

“But - you should take the Felix. If you’re going after a Horcrux - ”

“I don’t need luck, I’ll be with Dumbledore, alright?” Harry finally finished. “Something is going to happen here. I know it. Patrol the corridors. Watch the map. Take the potion. And - share it with Ginny, too, ok?” And then he ran back out through the portrait hole without another word. 

He was almost all the way down to the Great Hall when he suddenly remembered Severus. Dumbeldore was waiting for him, but all at once the bracelet didn’t seem like enough. He stopped short outside the entrance to the Hall and reversed, sprinting back into the bathroom. It was empty, and this time, he locked and warded the door. 

_Severus,_ he sent. _I have to go with Dumbledore and there is no time. Will you come up?_

 _[Call]_ appeared at once.

 _Chimera,_ Harry thought, and Severus appeared. He looked around, a little startled, and Harry grabbed his arms before he could speak.

“Hey,” he said. “Listen. On my way up to Dumbeldore’s office I passed by the room of requirement and Trelawney had just been in there. She heard Malfoy - or - someone - yelling. But she said he sounded _happy._ Dumbeldore is taking me somewhere and I have to go _now._ But I needed to tell you.”

“Where is he taking you?” Severus asked. Harry squeezed his arms.

“There’s no time for that. I just - have a bad feeling and - I - ” he broke off, but then pushed through. There wasn’t any time for hesitation, either. Dumbeldore was already waiting for him. “I didn’t want to leave without seeing you.” Severus just looked into his eyes for a fraction of a second, and then took hold of his head in both hands. 

“Be safe,” he said. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” Harry answered, suddenly struck with a stab of terror so deep it felt like stepping off a cliff. Severus kissed his forehead. 

“I love you,” he said. 

“I love you,” Harry answered. “More than anything. But - I have to go. He’s waiting for me.”

“Go, then,” Severus answered, and released him.

***

Harry looked back at him once from the door, hesitating, with an expression that Severus would never forget. 

“Don’t take off the bracelet,” he said, and left. 

“I won’t,” Severus answered, but he was already gone.

Severus went back to his rooms, and this time, he submitted to his urge to pace. Why would Albus take Harry out of the castle? It was far too dangerous out there for him, even if he was escorted by the Headmaster. What purpose could it possibly serve? The last time Albus took Harry away from him, he’d wanted to use Harry as a tool to gain the allegiance of Horace Slughorn. What could Albus need him for, now? What could be so critically important that he would dare take Harry outside of the protection of the grounds? And Draco. What in Merlin’s name could make Draco Malfoy shout with joy? Whatever he’d been working on all year - whatever dastardly plan he’d been suffering for - whatever it was he’d refused to tell Severus all this time - must be finally coming to fruition. At least Albus was gone. Small miracles. How could anyone kill Albus Dumbledore, when he wasn’t even here?

Severus paced for hours, fighting the urge to drink. If Harry was right and something happened tonight, he couldn’t very well be drunk when it did, could he? And certainly he needed to be sharp if Harry called for him. They hadn’t been apart like this since the hearing, and neither of them had liked that. If Harry called, he would need to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Ready to fight, maybe. To defend him.

Severus stayed fully dressed as the night wore on. He kept his wand in his hand. But still, there was nothing. No word, no message, and no return. Ten o’clock passed. And Eleven. And still, nothing. But surely, with Albus, he could not be harmed. Surely Albus would not bring Harry into danger. Not Harry. Never.

It was near midnight when his left arm finally burned. But when it did, it was not with the welcome heat of Harry’s call, but with the white-hot agony of his Mark turning black under his skin. And when he felt that pain, he knew. He knew, right then, that he and Harry had had their goodbye. Those few words in the boy’s bathroom. That was it. That was all they were going to get. 

Looking down at the Dark Mark as it charred into life on his forearm, he wished fiercely that he had said more. Had done more. Had kissed him properly before letting him go. But the time for wishing had passed. And now, finally, after all, it would be done. 

***

“Severus - I need - Severus. Call him… Harry - call him - now.” The weakness in Dumbledore’s voice was far more terrible than any Inferi or sinister green potion could ever be. Dumbledore, always so strong, so unaffected, so serene, sounded just on the verge of collapse. And then, before Harry’s very eyes, he did collapse. He sank right to the ground, and fell sideways.

“Severus - yes,” Harry gasped, pushing up his sleeve. He seized the silver and thought _Chimera,_ but Severus did not come. He did it again, thinking it harder. _CHIMERA._ Still nothing. He looked back at Dumbledore on the cobblestone street, panic rising up in him. The bracelets _always_ worked. How could they not work? He touched his finger to the silver.

 _Severus please I need you,_ he thought. _Dumbledore is ill - there was a potion - poison or something. I need you to come._

The silver stayed cold and dark on his arm. He touched it again and spoke aloud.

“Severus! We need you!” Nothing. _“CHIMERA!”_ Nothing. “Professor, I’m sorry,” Harry gasped. “It isn’t working - I don’t know what’s wrong with it - ” he shook his arm hard like he could knock loose some sort of malfunctioning clockwork. Why was there no answer? It had to be something wrong with the magic. It couldn’t be that Severus was just - not there. 

His heart clenched in his chest and he dug his thumb into the trigger point at his wrist. He needed to stay functional. It was critical that he get Dumbledore to the castle before he - 

There was the sound of running feet, and Harry looked around to see Madam Rosmerta scurrying down the street towards them in her fluffy high-heeled slippers. Thank god, someone had heard. Someone had noticed that something was terribly wrong, and was coming to their aid.

Rosmerta helped him to lift Albus to his feet, and, as he staggered up, Harry saw a glitter on the ground. The locket had fallen out of Dumbledore’s robes when he’d succumbed, and was laying there, as innocent as a piece of costume jewelry. Harry grabbed it and put it in his pocket, trying not to think about what it was, and then, as Rosmerta’s words filtered into his brain, he looked up at the castle in the distance, and saw it. 

The Dark Mark.

***

There were bodies in the corridors, and Severus leapt over them without stopping to see who they were. It didn’t matter. He could find out who was dead later. 

“Severus! Thank god. They’ve blocked the stairs!”

It was Minerva, and looking at her fighting savagely with Dolohov, Severus could see that the Order was losing. There were children fighting. There was blood all over the floor. And Greyback was here. How could Draco have brought Greyback into the school? How had he brought any of them? So _many_ of them? 

He sprinted past her. He needed to find Draco. He would be the center. He was the orchestrator and purpose of all of this - and it had to be finished quickly. If he finished it quickly, he could stop the fighting. Once it was done, he could get them all out of here before the students were slaughtered. Finish it, and run. Right now. That was all he could do. That was the only way to save any of them at all.

His bracelet heated again on his wrist, but he didn’t even look at it. If he saw a single word from Harry right now he would never be able to go through with this, and he didn’t have a choice. Failing was suicide, hesitation was suicide, and either would be a death sentence for so many innocent others. 

Four of the Deatheaters broke out of the fighting and ran towards the stairs, and Severus pelted after them, past Nymphadora and the Weasley girl and boy. The youngest Weasleys. How could they be fighting? If one of them was killed Harry would never - 

He reached the blocked staircase and raised his left arm, passing straight through the barrier like it was smoke, and hurtling up the stairs. At the very top, he flung open the door, and burst onto an awful scene. 

Dumbledore had returned and was slumped against the wall, with Draco standing before him, his wand held aloft by a badly shaking hand. Greyback, the Carrows, and Rowle were all lurking at the edges, egging him on. But it was not the sight of Dumbledore disarmed and weakened that filled Severus with horror. It was the pair of broomsticks leaning against the wall. Not one broomstick, but a _pair._

Harry was there, somewhere. He was right there in the tower, underneath his cloak. And he was going to have to _watch._

“We’ve got a problem, Snape,” Amycus said. “The boy doesn’t seem able - ” he broke off.

“Severus…” Dumbledore’s voice was soft, and pleading, and everyone in the room turned to look at him. It was as if seeing the greatest Wizard alive so diminished shocked them all into silence. Severus Snape was not shocked, though. Severus was furious. Albus had taken _Harry_. He’d taken Harry away, and then brought him here, to this room, filled with violence and danger and death. Harry, his Harry, right in the hornet’s nest, protected only by his cloak. Dumbledore had done that. Dumbledore had brought them all there. Dumbledore the _puppetmaster._ Severus hated him. Hated every single person he could see. And, for a moment, his disgust was so strong that he could almost forget that Harry was somewhere nearby, acting as witness to this monstrous act. Severus had hoped - he really had - that Harry would be far away when this happened. Sleeping, maybe, when Severus finally ended Albus’ long and illustrious life. This was the worst possible scenario. For him to see it. 

He shoved Draco roughly out of the way.

“Severus… please…” 

Albus was begging him, but there was no need for that, really. Why beg, when Severus had no choice? He raised his wand and said it at once. No hesitation. The grief could come later, if it did. 

_“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

***

Harry did not know what he had seen. All he knew was that he had to get to Severus. He had to catch up with Severus before he left the grounds. He _had to._ If he could just do that, everything would be fine. Surely it had been a trick. A ruse. A plan to outsmart the Deatheater, and foil Malfoy’s plot. If he could just get to Severus, everything would be fine. He tried to put the fact that Dumbledore’s freezing charm had broken only moments after he’d been blasted out over the battlements out of his mind. That didn’t mean anything. Not anything at all. Maybe Dumbledore had just lifted it - so Harry wouldn’t be - trapped there - under his - cloak. 

He put his head down and sprinted through the fighting in the halls outside the tower. He had to get to Severus. That was all that mattered. He could deal with everything else once he had _Severus._ He just needed Severus _._ And - everything - would be - _fine._

There were screams all around him, and flashes, and bangs, and he had to duck and roll to avoid being hit by a wild jinx fired off by an enormous, hulking Deatheater. Someone was yelling for him to come back, but he ignored it. He didn’t really even hear it. 

He slid in a pool of blood as he took a corner at full tilt, and then pelted towards a shortcut, hoping to overtake the Carrows. If he could do that, maybe he could close in on Severus. Just what he intended to do if he succeeded, though, he had no idea. 

Bursting out of a tapestry at the bottom of a hidden staircase, he found himself in the middle of a group of pajama-clad Hufflepuffs. They tried to speak to him, to ask him questions, but he pushed through them so forcefully that Ernie Macmillan was knocked into the wall.

“Harry!” they called after him. Harry did not stop. Did not even slow, as he sprinted down the marble staircase and into the Great Hall. The Gryffindor hourglass had been shattered, and the rubies within were still pouring out onto the blood-smeared flagstones. They had just passed. They were still inside the perimeter, _surely._

_RUN FASTER COME ON RUN_

A searing pain in his side, Harry tore out of the front doors and into the dark grounds. Ahead of him, he could just see three figures running. There was a bright flash, and jets of light, and Harry realized that Hagrid had heard them and entered the fray. Seeing that, even as the cold night air ripped painfully through his lungs, he sped up again. 

_Not Hagrid. Not Hagrid - no - Not Hagrid too -_

***

Severus did not care how many Deatheaters made it out. He only had one job now, and that was to fulfill the terms of his vow to Narcissa by bringing Draco safely to the Dark Lord. That was all that was left, so he kept Draco running, even as people tried to fight. Even as Hagrid burst out of his house with a shout of rage. He just kept running, dragging Draco in his wake, forcing him to move faster. But then, as they made it past Hagrid’s flaming hut, he heard something that turned his attention. It was Amycus shouting in triumph behind them - and triumph was not something he wanted to hear from his _colleagues._ No. 

“Aha!” the Deatheater shrieked. _“CRUCIO!”_

A truly horrific scream cleaved through the night air, and Severus skidded to a halt, frozen in terror. He had never heard Harry scream like that before, but there was no doubt that it was Harry _._ That unspeakable sound was Harry _screaming._ He whipped around. 

“Run, Draco!” he shouted, brandishing his wand and knocking Amycus off of his feet. He could just see Harry on his back in the grass, stunned and panting, and he had only one thought in his head: He had to get these people away from Harry. He had to get them away from him. “Have you forgotten our orders?” he roared. “Potter belongs to the Dark Lord - we are to leave him! Go! Go!” The three Deatheaters nearby obeyed him and thundered away towards Draco still sprinting for the perimeter. 

Harry wasn’t getting up. Was he unconscious? It would be better if he was. If he didn’t fight, maybe no one else would try to hurt him. 

The hesitation in Severus’ heart was so great and so excruciating that it felt like being torn in two. But he knew he had to go. He had to leave, and he had to leave _now._ He forced himself to turn, and run, and he almost made it to the gates, too, before Harry screamed again. But this time, it was his name - and if he had thought the sound of Harry’s agony was terrible, this was much worse. It was like the sound his damned soul would hear in hell for all eternity. Harry, screaming for him, when he couldn’t go back.

He stopped again, turned around, and was instantly paralyzed by what he saw. Harry, silhouetted in the light from Hagrid’s burning house, on his knees, clutching his head in both hands and screaming his name again - like he was being ripped apart. 

“SEVERUS!” 

An eruption of red sparks exploded around him, throwing the grounds into livid relief, and Severus, looking up at them in awe, saw clouds suddenly gathering in the sky above them all. And then the clouds opened up, and an almighty flood of freezing rain poured forth. Instantly, the grounds were drenched and the fire in Hagrid’s hut went out, and in the sudden darkness, Severus could only just see it as Harry went limp and slumped to the ground - hardly a shadow in the feeble light shining from the castle windows through the torrent of rain.

Severus could not see if he was bleeding. Severus could not see his face. And Severus could not go back for him - could not change course. He COULDN’T. 

He ran - and at the edge of the grounds, he disapparated with Draco and the others, and left him there. 

He just… left him. 

  
  



	10. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beloved readers. I am under a shelter in place order due to the current pandemic and cannot go to work! It's very scary. Please leave comments. I should be writing lots and lots for the next three weeks.
> 
> Enjoy

The survivors appeared at Malfoy Manor, soaked to the skin. Severus was last, only a fraction of a second after the others, and he appeared just in time to see Draco, retching, fall to his hands and knees in the manicured lawn. 

_Oh, did he make himself sick? How sad._

Severus jerked him to his feet by the collar of his robes. 

“Get up,” he ordered. “On your feet, Draco. Your Master calls.” He shoved him hard in the back, and Draco stumbled, and fell again. “Get up. Draco - GET UP!”

Scrambling to his feet, Draco staggered, but then finally found his legs. When he turned around, Severus could see that he was white, as well he should be. Weak. Pathetic. _Loathsome._

“I’m sorry,” Draco whispered, wiping his mouth. “I couldn’t - I couldn’t do it.”

Severus sneered at him, hatred so intense frothing up inside him that for a moment he was afraid he might just kill Draco, too. Just kill everyone, maybe. And then himself. “I know,” he said, and began pushing Draco towards the front gates of what had once been his family home, but was now the headquarters of the Dark Lord. “Tell it to Him, not to me.”

Rowle, Alecto, and Amycus trailed behind them, and Severus could feel their excitement like a radiant heat. Everyone was going to be excited. Everyone was going to be pleased. Severus would have to be pleased, too. For they had succeeded. 

They had won.

***

When Harry woke up, it was to a very familiar white blur. He blinked groggily. His head hurt. What had he done to himself? 

Shifting a little under the crisp, clean sheets, he turned his head to see a dark shape to his left. 

“Glasses?” he asked.

“Here,” a soft voice answered. 

Harry took the spectacles that were pressed into his hand, and, once they were on, looked up at Remus Lupin sitting beside his hospital bed. Remus Lupin. 

He recoiled so forcefully that the room spun around him and he almost toppled to the floor. 

“Harry, hey,” Remus said, taking hold of his shoulders. “It’s alright.”

“Don’t _touch me,”_ Harry gasped, struggling against his grip despite the lightness in his head. “Don’t touch me - where’s Severus? Don’t TOUCH ME!” And then more people started to appear. From outside in the hall, and Madam Pomfrey’s office, and out of the bloody walls, or so it seemed. People everywhere. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, and Ginny. McGonagall, and Madam Pomfrey, too. All these people, but no Severus. Where was Severus? Harry was in the hospital. Severus should be here. Not _Lupin_. Not Lupin trying to _touch him._ How could Severus have allowed this? How could he have… 

Staring around at them all, Harry’s brain suddenly began to catch up to his body.

Severus wasn’t here, because Severus had left him.

Out there, in the grass, outside Hagrid’s hut.

He was gone.

Severus was gone, and Dumbledore was dead, and Harry was here, in the hospital.

He tore himself away from Lupin’s hands and out of his bed, stumbling back until he was pressed into a corner. 

“Harry,” Remus said again, jumping up to pursue him. “It’s alright. Calm down. You’re safe.”

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Harry shrieked into the wall, the horror inside him boiling violently to the surface. “Don’t touch me don’t TOUCH ME!”

“HEY, BACK OFF!” shouted another voice. “BACK OFF!” There was a scuffle, and Harry was at once surrounded by a great quantity of bushy brown hair. 

“Harry, oh, _Harry.”_

It was Hermione, embracing him, shielding him from the others. Harry clutched at her, shaking. Hermione, he could trust. Hermione was his friend. He could trust her.

“Back off,” Ron said again.

“Yeah,” Ginny added, a steely edge in her voice. “Just stay still for a second, ok? Don’t make us curse you.” 

“Are you alright?” Hermione asked in a whisper, holding him tight. “Hagrid found you unconscious out in the grounds. What happened? Harry, what happened?”

_Oh, God._

“Dumbledore - ” he choked out. Hermione started stroking his back as his words sheared off. He had to say it, though. If he didn’t say it, he’d explode. “Dumbledore - ”

“I know,” she said softly. “I know. They found him. They say he fell.”

“No,” Harry insisted. His voice was high, and thin, like it was being forced through a tiny fissure, but he had to finish. He had to get it out, or what he’d seen would surely kill him. “I saw it. I saw it.”

“What?” Hermione asked. “What did you see?”

“I - saw - _Severus.”_

“Yes. Where is he?”

“No. _No_ \- He did it. He - ” he broke off again, almost strangling on the unbearable awfulness of hearing the words he himself was speaking. “Severus - killed him. He killed - Dumbledore. It - was - _Severus_ \- ” There. He’d said it. 

It was out.

His knees buckled. 

Hermione wasn’t quite strong enough to catch him, and he crumpled to the floor, and down there, on his knees, he pressed his face to the tiles, covered his head with his arms, and started to scream. And once he’d started, he found that he couldn’t stop. He just screamed and screamed and screamed into the floor until someone sedated him. Maybe it was Madam Pomfrey, or Professor McGonagall. It didn’t matter.

***

It had been Poppy who sedated him. And so, Harry wasn’t conscious for the uproar that followed. The shouting, the weeping, the arguing, and cursing. The rage, and denials, and explosive grief. He did not feel it when Hermione and Ginny put him back into his bed. He did not see Remus shouting at Ron or Ron shoving him away, or Luna and Tonks separating them. He did not see that, in his grief, he had shattered every single window in the hospital wing and sprayed broken glass all over everyone, and he did not see Minerva numbly carrying out the repairs. He did not see Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Fleur arrive to see Bill, mutilated by Greyback, and he did not see Ron and Hermione absolutely refusing to leave him, despite all the adults that tried to force them to go. 

He didn’t see any of that. He didn’t see anything at all, and he did not wake up again until early in the morning. That time, though, when he opened his eyes, the hospital wing was quiet. 

He turned his head, afraid to see who might be standing vigil by his bed, but no one was there. Or, at least, only his friends. Ron was asleep in a chair beside him, and beyond him, Hermione lay curled up in an empty bed. Harry supposed that Ron had been a gentleman about it. Giving her the bed. 

He reached out to touch him, but at the sound of his arm shifting against the sheets, Ron jerked awake.

“Harry, Merlin,” he gasped, clutching at his heart. “Jeez, mate.” 

“Sorry,” Harry whispered. “Where’s Lupin?”

“Lupin? Oh. I told him to kick rocks. He wasn’t very happy about it, but he went. How are you?”

Harry didn’t answer that. He felt like he’d been sedated, and that maybe it wasn’t all the way out of his system yet. Had he been sedated? “What happened?”

“Oh. Well.” Ron looked a little awkward. “You woke up and… sort of… saw Lupin and… kind of … lost it. You told us that - ”

Harry cut him off before he could finish. “No, I mean before. What happened? Who else is dead? I saw some … bodies. While I was - running.”

“None of ours,” Ron whispered, looking over his shoulder at Hermione, asleep. “But, Harry, if you hadn’t given us your Felix, I think we all would have died. It was madness.” 

Ron told him in a low whisper about the battle, and the wounded, and how many Deatheaters there were, and how the Order was at the school in force. He told him how Draco used Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder as cover, and how the Deatheaters barricaded the staircase up to the Astronomy Tower. 

Harry didn’t think he was really absorbing any of it. It felt like Ron’s words were being poured in his ear and leaking right out through the huge hole in his chest. But he did his best to listen, all the same.

Ron told him how Snape passed through the barrier when no one else could, and how they’d all thought that he was there to help. And then, when he’d just gotten to the point where Snape and Draco came hurtling back down from the tower, Hermione woke up, and crept over, and Harry heard the rest. The two of them, together, whispered to him how Draco and Snape ran past, and how no one knew what to think. About Severus shouting, _“it’s over,”_ to the Deatheaters, and their retreat, and Harry’s appearance. 

“It was just in time,” Hermione whispered. “I really think our luck had almost run out. If the battle had lasted even five minutes longer…” she broke off with a shiver and Ron reached out to hold her hand. 

“But what happened in the tower, Harry?” she asked. “Can you tell us?”

Harry looked at the two of them, almost just shadows in the dim glow of the hospital nightlights, and thought that if he didn’t tell it now, he would never be able to. Not ever in his life. So, he told them. He told them how Dumbledore paralyzed him under his cloak, and how Draco came through the door and disarmed him, but then lost his nerve, and told Dumbledore everything. The looks on their faces when he repeated what Malfoy had said about the vanishing cabinets might have been satisfying, if Harry had been capable of feeling anything at all, right then. He’d been right, all along, but it had come to nothing. Worse than nothing. It had come to this unbearable tragedy. At least he’d done one thing right, though. He’d given his friends enough luck to keep them alive through all the fighting. None of them were dead because he told them to patrol the corridors. 

But… Dumbledore. 

Dumbledore had used his one precious moment of action to freeze Harry, and in so doing, gave Draco the chance to disarm him. If only he hadn’t done that - if Harry hadn’t been with him - maybe he could have defended himself. If Harry hadn’t been there, maybe Dumbledore would still be alive, and Severus would be sitting beside his bed, as he had been so many times before.

Severus.

Severus warned him.

Severus told him that something was going to happen - that he was going to have to do something terrible.

But… How could it have been _this?_

Harry pressed his thumb into his wrist and counted to five, but then, when he released the point, trying to focus on his breathing, he noticed something horrifying. He pushed up his sleeve.

His cuff was gone.

“Where’s my bracelet?” he gasped, scrabbling in the sheets around him. “Oh, god. Where is it?” He looked off either side of his bed, and then off the end. It wasn’t there. It was gone. Someone had _taken it off of him._

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, stricken.

“Where is it?” Harry asked again, his voice rising. “Oh, no - _no._ Did Lupin take it? Did he?” He tried to get out of bed, but Ron took hold of his arms. 

“Harry,” he said. “Harry - shh - you’ll wake everyone - Hang on a minute.”

“No - Let - go-” 

He started to struggle, but Hermione laid her hands on him, too, and it was the gentleness of her touch that made him stop and listen. “Harry. I have it. I’m sorry. I took it off you. Once everyone else was gone. I thought - ” she broke off, and reached into her pocket. “I thought seeing it might upset you. But I have it here.” She produced the silver cuff and Harry snatched it from her hand, sucking in great lungfuls of air. He pressed his thumb into his wrist again, hard, and held it. 

_One. Two. Three. FOUR. FIVE -_

Hermione and Ron watched without speaking as Harry released the point, and then dug into it again immediately. 

_ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE._

_BREATHE. BREATHE._

He held the bracelet in both hands and focused on it hard. He’d never tried to do this before - Severus had put it on him in September and he’d never taken it off - but the silver obeyed his will anyway. It expanded to fit over his fingers, and tightened into place, and once it was back where it belonged, he fell back against the pillows and covered his face. 

For a moment there was complete silence, and then Hermione said his name with such compassion that it felt like a bandage ripped off a bleeding wound. 

“Harry…”

“Don’t,” he choked out. “Please - _don’t.”_

Tears began to flood out of him. 

Had he cried yet? He supposed he hadn’t. Well, he was crying now, wasn’t he? He was crying now.

It was like looking down at himself from the ceiling. Weeping. Hysterical. And it was from that surreal vantage point that he saw Hermione climb into bed with him, and then, after a moment, so did Ron. Then suddenly, like falling from a great height, he was back in his body, crushed between the two of them in his little hospital bed, and instead of seeing his tears from afar, he was feeling them, hot and painful in his eyes, and throat, and lungs. Burning him. Searing him to charcoal.

Ron and Hermione did not try to make him talk, or explain. They did not try to comfort him, or ask him any questions. They just held him. The two of them. And, after a while, his tears began to slow, and he slept.

***

Severus had never before in his life seen the Dark Lord so overcome with joy. He did not seem to care about the casualties, or that many of their number had been captured. He did not seem to care that Draco had failed. He only cared that, at the end of his life, Dumbledore had begged. 

There was revelry, and alcohol, and a muggle woman to torture - apparently as a gift for the returning champions - though Severus did not partake in either more than was absolutely necessary. Draco, reunited with his parents, clutched a single glass of wine in his white fingers for the duration, though Severus did not have much sympathy for him. Or any. Possibly he was afraid he’d be punished later for losing his nerve, and maybe he would be. The good will of the Dark Lord never lasted long, after all. He wondered if Draco finally understood what his choices meant, now. If he finally realized that the Mark he’d taken so proudly was, in fact, a terrible and deadly blot on his young life. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was just in shock.

Severus made it through more than three hours of that, before finally being shown to his room. He would be staying at Malfoy Manor for a while, he knew. He could hardly waltz back to his house in Cokeworth after murdering the most beloved Wizard in four generations. Once the Dark Lord took the Ministry, things would be different. But for now, he was stuck. So, after closing himself in his new accommodations, he placed every single silencing charm he knew onto the door, the windows, the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, and then stood very still in the center of the room.

He could feel his emotion trapped inside of him. His horror, and revulsion, and guilt, and grief. But, for a moment, it would not come out. And for that moment, he was afraid he might just lose his mind. If he stayed numb for much longer, he would surely end up in a padded cell. But then, standing there, an image arose before his eyes - clear as a memory. Harry, as he must have looked when he woke up alone in the Burrow’s attic bedroom, drugged to the gills. Alone, staggering down the stairs, looking for him. _Needing_ him.

Severus had been there for him that night. But he would not be there, now.

And maybe he would never be there again. 

There was a sound. Someone screaming - so loud, and so terribly, that it hurt his ears. 

It took many seconds, even as long as a full minute, before he began to realize that it was he making that sound. That horrible, tortured howl. That was his own voice.

And he knew, then, that he would not lose his mind, because he could not afford to. He had not yet fulfilled his life’s purpose. For he had loved Harry, and taught him, and made him as strong as he could. But that didn’t mean he was finished. He still had to save him, didn’t he? Save him, or die in the attempt, as he’d promised himself. And the first step on that path was to calm down, and get his memories in order.

He had to calm down, right now. 

Right at this moment.

_Now._

It took a while, but once Severus got himself back up off the floor, he lifted all of his wards, and sat quietly on the edge of his bed. He sat like that for a long time, just breathing, slowing his heart rate, until he thought he was calm enough to actually be able to accomplish anything at all. And then he closed his eyes, and turned inward. Into his memories. 

He had to do just the opposite of what he’d done for the Board of Governors. For there was still far too much of Harry in his mind to ever be able to hide. So, instead of making his love seem innocent and paternal, he had to do something very different. It came a little easier than he expected it to, though. Easier than it had been during his five-hour window before the hearing. It seemed that his heartbreak was so great that there was a kind of trench in his mind, ready-made. A crevasse, waiting to be filled. So, he set himself to filling it. 

It would be impossible to make it seem like he hadn’t spent every waking moment thinking of Harry for an entire year. So, instead, he started separating out his memories into two groups. He began prizing apart the two sides of their love. The sex from the affection. The brutality from the protection and tenderness. The obsession from the sentiment. Separating it all out to be altered. For, though he could not hope to convince anyone that he was not consumed with thoughts of Harry Potter, he surely could make himself into a villain. He was a villain - he left Harry behind. And only someone with a heart of stone could have done that to someone so precious.

It was with surgical precision, then, that he cut out every single, _‘I love you,’_ and replaced it with, _‘I own you.’_ That he stripped away every indication that he’d ever cared at all what Harry wanted or didn’t want. He tore out all the green sparks, and then, after some consideration, all the other colors, too. He needed to seem like he hadn’t asked for Harry’s consent. Ever. 

He scraped away all of the things he’d taught Harry - all the ways he’d tried to help him - and made it seem like he’d just been drugging him to sleep every night since they’d begun. He buried all the incredible magic Harry had developed. The flowers, and the chess set, and the wandless defensive work, and the - - _rain_. He dug the mental chasm deeper as he added more, and more, and more. Dumping in the talking, the teasing, the laughter, the touching, and all the memories of looking into his eyes. Washing his hair. The meals they’d shared. The comfort. It all had to be hidden. All of it. 

He lifted his love away like peeling off a thin layer of paint - careful, meticulous, without leaving a single fragment behind. And then he began to duplicate the other things. Hitting him, choking him, putting him on his knees. Demanding that he beg. Tying him to the bed. Dragging him back by the hair. Kicking his legs apart. Biting him. Bruising him. Hurting him. Over and over and over.

_‘I’m not asking. Down.’_

_‘Beg me. Beg for mercy.’_

_‘Open your mouth.’_

_‘Please me.’_

_‘Take it.’_

_‘What a good boy.’_

He took the way Harry flinched away from him after the Christmas Party, and copied it, varied it, made it seem like Severus always left him like that when he was done. That he always left Harry shaking, and alone, and used. He added some tears, too, and then sprinkled Harry begging him to stop over it all. The way he’d pleaded when Severus first tried to be gentle with him.

_“Stop - Please - I can’t - it’s too much - ”_

_“I can’t - Please, stop.”_

He added it to the violence, though. _Please stop hurting me,_ instead of _please stop trying to love me._

The Dark Lord had told him to damage Potter. To destabilize him. And like this, he could prove that he had. He could prove to anyone that cared to question him that Potter was weak, now. Weaker than he’d ever been. That Severus had subjugated him. Had done horrible things to him. Had turned him into an obedient piece of meat, killed his one remaining protector, and then left him.

It had to be perfect. Flawless. Because Draco had seen Harry looking at him, hadn’t he? He’d said as much. And so many must have heard Harry screaming for him as they ran for the perimeter. Screaming like Severus was his whole world - like his heart was being ripped from his body. Surely the Dark Lord would hear of it, and inquire, and when he did, Severus needed to be ready. Because, if he was ready, and if he’d done well enough, before, then the Dark Lord and all his servants would expect Harry to be practically defenseless, instead of the most powerful wizard Severus had ever encountered. They would critically underestimate him, just when it mattered most. Or, at least, that was his hope. 

And so, he worked. He worked long into the night, shaving off any tiny fragment of feeling that might make him seem less than a monster. He crafted an elaborate web of memories and lies that proved that what he’d had with Harry had not been love, but possession. Not passion, but greed. That Harry had found no shelter in his arms, no friendship, no intimacy - but only cruelty, hatred, and perversion. That Severus was nothing more than a grown man, taking unspeakable advantage of a vulnerable boy. That Severus had confused him, isolated him, and groomed him to obey - like abusers everywhere always did - and then used him, betrayed him, and left him behind. 

He had to be that man, right to his very core. 

He had to cut out his heart.

He stayed up all night to do it, but that did not trouble him. He didn’t want to sleep. In fact, he didn’t think he wanted to sleep ever again. So, finally, when he was finished, and a shaft of glorious summer sun was streaming in through his windows, he looked at the light falling over his empty bed, went into the bathroom, and vomited yellow bile into the sink. 

***

Harry didn’t cry anymore after that first night. Not when he saw Bill’s ravaged face, or when he found out why he’d been sedated. Not after he was discharged from the hospital wing and could finally be alone, or when he tried to go into his magic and saw that everything there was blackened and dead. Not when he had to tell McGonagall what he’d seen in the tower, or when he refused to tell her what he and Dumbledore had left the castle to do. Not when he found the precious Horcrux in his pocket and realized it was a fake, and not when he told Ron and Hermione. 

He did not cry at Dumbledore’s funeral, or when Scrimgeour tried to corner him, although he did come very close to stealing the Minister’s walking stick and beating him to death with it. He did not cry when he decided that he was never coming back to Hogwarts, or when he told his friends, and he didn’t cry when they promised to come with him. 

And when they tried to talk to him, to ask him about how he was feeling, and about what he’d had to do to Dumbledore, and about Severus, and the bracelet, and the Half-Blood Prince - he still did not cry. But he didn't answer them, either, and after a while, they stopped asking. They left him alone, really. After a while.

It wasn’t just the tears that were gone, either. His wandless magic wouldn’t come. When he flicked his fingers nothing at all came out of them, and when he opened his hands to create, nothing appeared. But that was ok. He didn’t really want to make anything. Not very much, anyway.

He could still go into his magic, though, even though the field was now a desolate wasteland. He did it every single night, in fact. Late, after the whispers of the others died away, he would sit up in bed, control his breathing, relax his body, pull in his magic, and walk around in the ashes. And in there, he would think. He would think about what Severus had said to him, and about the desperate grief he’d felt in Severus’ heart when he’d only meant to share his pleasure. He thought about how Severus had kissed his forehead that last night and told him to be safe, and he thought about Dumbledore testifying on their behalf to the Governors, to keep Severus at Hogwarts, even though what they were doing was despicable. Dumbeldore had done that, Harry knew, because Severus had a job to do, and Dumbledore needed him to do it. He thought about Dumbledore’s pleading voice, and the hate and disgust in Severus’ eyes. He thought about what Hermione and Ron had said, too. That the Deatheater’s retreat was just in time - that they had been losing the battle. He thought about Malfoy, trembling and shaking in the tower, and Severus pushing him aside.

_When you hate me, remember this._

When Severus said that, Harry’d thought that hating him was impossible. But Severus was right about that, like he was right about everything else.

Harry did hate him.

But he remembered, too.

He remembered everything.

“War,” Severus had said.

War.

  
  



	11. What Sort of Man

It didn’t take long for Severus to be justified in his decision to tear his own memories apart that first night at Malfoy Manor. Four days. That was all. And then Draco apparently offered up some truly delicious information to the Dark Lord in a bid to protect himself from punishment. He really was a coward, that boy. A pathetic, backstabbing coward.

“Dear Draco is concerned that your allegiances have shifted,” was Voldemort’s opening salvo. “Perhaps you might clarify, Severus. Ease my troubled mind.”

“Is he?” Severus answered, sitting back in his chair before the fire that Voldemort always lit, no matter how balmy the weather. Nagini was at their feet, coiling around his legs in what was evidently meant to be a threatening manner, but he ignored her. He was familiar with that tactic and it wasn’t going to work on him. “What a sad attempt to cover for his own abject failures.” Voldemort laughed a little, in his horrible, strangled way, and tapped his spider-like fingers against his mouth.

“He seems to think that you and the Potter boy have formed some sort of _bond.”_

“Well,” Severus began, crossing his legs in absolute disregard for the gigantic snake inches from his boots. “We have.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes. As I’m sure you recall, my Lord, from my last report to this point, that by the start of the school year I had very successfully coerced the boy into… confiding in me.” The Dark Lord inclined his head. “Well, it became clear to me after a number of weeks that Potter had a… vulnerability… that I was not aware of.”

“And what vulnerability might that be?” Voldemort looked intrigued. No, more than that - he looked _fascinated -_ and in that expression Severus could see his trust. He was excited to hear what sort of weakness Severus had discovered, knowing that he certainly would have exploited it. And Severus had exploited it, hadn’t he?

“His desire for approval, my Lord. For… affection. But not of the usual sort. No one had ever taught him what kind of attention was appropriate, you see. He had a very troubled childhood. Abuse. Neglect.”

“And?” Voldemort’s snakelike pupils dilated, as if Harry’s pain were a fine wine, decanted for his pleasure. 

“I discovered, too, that he had a desire for - ” Severus paused, considering his own fingernails like he had no fear at all. “Male attention.” Voldemort’s mouth twisted up in delight, and he continued. “So, I gave it to him.”

“Show me.”

Severus showed him. He looked calmly into the Dark Lord’s distorted, reptilian eyes, and allowed his mind to be penetrated. He could feel it, as always, and could see the flashes of memory as they were dragged out for inspection. Harry’s white skin. His voice, begging and screaming. His submission, and obedience, and torment at Severus’ hands. Severus thought he did rather well at withholding his revulsion, too, for when the Dark Lord blinked the invasion away, he looked almost euphoric.

“Oh, Severus,” he purred, and Severus did not recoil from the hand that reached out to stroke his jaw, though he badly would have liked to. “How lovely. You’ve done so well. But, my boy, I had no idea your appetites ran in that direction.” 

_Harry will never forgive me for this._

He crushed the thought before his mind could even complete it, and allowed his eyes to half-close like his master’s praise was all he ever wanted. Like it was salve to a stinging wound, instead of one of the most horrible things he had ever heard. But then, Voldemort said something even more horrible. Something Severus had not anticipated.

“Such a pity to lose your plaything, just when you most deserve a reward. Perhaps I might offer you something else. Draco, if you like. You might have him, instead.” 

When Lily died - when Severus killed her - crawling back to the Dark Lord’s knee had felt almost impossible. It was torture, every moment, to hold back his boiling hatred, his overwhelming disgust, the scalding self-loathing that filled him. This, though, was far worse. It took all of his force of will to keep from jerking back. But he was stronger than he had been when he sent his best friend to the gallows at the age of twenty-one. He was stronger, and smarter, and his magic was deeper and more developed. His will was iron, and it was enough. He stayed quite still, in fact, as he answered. 

“My Lord is very generous. But Draco isn’t quite my type.”

“No?” Voldemort asked, sounding rather disappointed. “He’s young. Handsome. Well bred. Maybe not quite as small as Potter, but still. I have no use for him, now. Take him.”

What a mistake Draco had made. 

“It is not that he is off-putting in his appearance, my Lord. I simply like more of a… challenge,” Severus answered, his voice perfectly neutral, even as a sick, hot tentacle of disgust twisted low in his belly. “I’m afraid Draco would be no challenge at all, now. Too easy to put on his knees, you see. No fun.” He paused. “You should have seen him in the tower. Shaking like a leaf. He’s already broken, what pleasure could I take in breaking him again?”

“I imagine that Potter was a challenge.”

“Oh yes, my Lord. Practically impossible, at first.”

“And yet you persevered, didn’t you?”

“As you’ve seen.”

Voldemort cackled, and Severus suddenly wondered if he should have accepted his disgusting gift. The Dark Lord was obviously feeling magnanimous after their success at beheading the Order. Draco might be offered to someone else. Or to more than one. He might be… passed around. 

Draco had gone to the Dark Lord seeking salvation, but there was no salvation to be found for that delicate, blonde, pureblood boy. None at all. What a mistake he'd made, sharing his misgivings. He should have known that Severus was untouchable. He should have thought it through - should have offered something else.

He tried to imagine what Draco might have said to trigger this. Something about how Harry looked at him - like a _‘fucking lost puppy,’_ no doubt. Severus should find him and tell him what he’d done, so he could at least understand what was happening to him. 

The Dark Lord wanted to see his memories one more time before sending him away, and Severus submitted to it, even as he took his time. Having satisfied his suspicions, The Dark Lord carded through the images carefully, with real relish, while Severus sat there, tranquil as a frozen lake, looking into his red eyes. Sitting there in absolute obeisance, Severus could not help but think, far down in the most secret recesses of his mind, that he must have no soul at all to tolerate this. That there must be something terribly wrong with him, at his very core, to be able to sit there, so calm, with the Dark Lord’s fingers in his brain, eviscerating the one great love of his life. But, of course, he had no choice. For Severus would have cut out his own tongue to prevent the Dark Lord from ever seeing Harry like this, but it was the best he could do. And - at least - it wasn’t real. Not most of it, anyway.

The Dark Lord seemed to enjoy one particular altered scene more than the others. He watched it four times. Harry, strung up, with his ankles tied down, beaten with the switch. Severus had added a little blood, and a lot of crying and pleading. 

_‘Stop, please - no more - PLEASE - Severus please STOP - ’_

And his own voice, low and cruel, and _enjoying it._

 _‘You beg so prettily,’_ and, _‘louder. I want to hear you scream.’_

During the fourth repetition, Severus could feel a crack beginning to form in the seal he’d made over his true thoughts and memories. They were all still down there, underneath the false ones, and though he _was_ a better Wizard, and his Occlumency _was_ more powerful - there was so much more to hide. His feelings for Harry were so strong that keeping them hidden right then felt like the earth’s crust holding back a roiling lake of magma. He pressed down on the weak place in his mind, trying hard to stay serene and composed - but - hearing Harry scream like that - over and over - he could feel the crack deepening and shifting. 

“You’re an artist, Severus. A true artist,” the Dark Lord whispered, releasing him. “Tell me if you change your mind about Dear Draco. Or if you see anyone else that strikes your fancy.”

“Thank you, my Lord. I live to serve.” He needed to get out of there, now, before his defenses broke completely apart. He needed to plaster over that crack, and all the others he could feel threatening to form. He’d been wrong to think that his usual precautions would be enough. They weren’t. He needed to do repairs, and badly, and he’d probably need to do them every single day. 

***

Severus spent about three hours that night shoring up his barriers, and when he was done, he tried to sleep. The night felt endless, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d really slept or not, but in the morning, he set himself to locating Draco. It took him a while - he seemed to be hiding - but in the end, Severus simply found his father. Lucius was so debased by this point that he readily told Severus where his only son could be found, and where Draco could be found was in the servants quarters. Hiding, indeed. Cowering. He seemed to know that Severus would come for him.

Severus stopped in the open doorway and crossed his arms. 

“Good morning, Draco,” he began. “I understand you thought you might curry favor by telling tales on me.” Draco was sitting on the bed when he opened the door, and he stayed there, motionless, like a cornered rabbit. He did not attempt an escape, or even stand up. He really was broken. 

“No,” Draco said quietly. “I didn’t.” 

Severus scoffed. “Don’t lie to me. Would you care to know how it went over?” he paused, looking down at him, thinking about knocking him aside to get at Albus. Thinking about doing that terrible deed, and leaving Harry unconscious on the wet ground, just to bring Draco Malfoy to his _mother._ “Our Lord and Master offered you to me,” he continued, watching as the color drained from Draco’s face. “Oh, yes, Draco. As a _toy.”_

“What… did you say?” His voice was hardly a breath. He was so fucking _weak._

“I told him I didn’t want you,” Severus spat. “But that doesn’t mean no one will, does it? So, I’ve come to warn you as an act of charity, which you do not deserve.” He turned away. “Keep your head down if you don’t want it held down.”

***

Harry’d known for ages that he was going to have to go back to the Dursleys one more time before he came of age, but he hadn’t known until recently just how brief his stay would be. It was a relief hearing that he was going to be moved before his birthday broke his mother’s protective charm. Mostly because he hated the Dursleys, but also because it seemed strategically stupid to wait for the charm to break naturally. But, apparently the Order agreed with him, so, when Kingsley and Mr. Weasley collected him from school, he hugged Ron and Hermione goodbye, and went with them without complaint, knowing that it would only be a couple of weeks. 

They escorted him straight to Little Whinging without preamble - right to the front steps of Number 4 Privet Drive - like that was where he belonged. It felt like a dream, opening the door to see his Aunt and Uncle standing there, with Dudley cowering hugely behind them. They seemed like cartoons, or cardboard cutouts. Had he ever been afraid of them? It seemed quite impossible to him, now. How could anything frighten him anymore, let alone these Muggles? He’d been through hell. No, he was still _in_ hell. What could these people do to him? 

He walked right past them all without speaking and took his trunk up to his room. Let Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explain the situation to them. Let _the Order_ tell them about the charm, and his birthday, and the deadly danger they were all in. Let them take care of it. Harry was tired. 

Upstairs, he dropped his trunk in the corner, set Hedwig on top, and sat on his bed. Then, after a moment, he touched one finger to his cuff, and then took it away. He did that about eight-hundred times a day, it felt like. Touching his bracelet and then withdrawing without saying anything at all. He didn’t know what he could say. Or - no, that was wrong. He had thousands of things to say to Severus. But he thought that if he tried to speak and got no answer, he might go mad. If Severus was silent, as he had been the night Dumbledore died, he was sure he would crack right up. And he couldn’t afford to do that. He needed to stay sharp - to fight the war. So, instead, he touched his cuff, but said nothing. Eight-hundred times a day. 

He lay back on his bed and looked at the ceiling, trying not to think. He could hear Uncle Vernon blustering down in the living room. He sounded angry. Maybe he would try to hit Harry once the Order members left. That would be good. If Uncle Vernon tried to hit him, he could hit back. Because, right then, Harry wanted badly to fight. He felt that he’d fight anyone, for any reason, in fact. 

The shouting did not stop for a while, and Harry had to push hard to get rid of the thought that his Muggle relatives would never dare shout at Severus like that. Severus was too intimidating. He was too powerful. He was too… 

_Dangerous._

Harry touched his bracelet and took his hand away, and then turned onto his side and closed his eyes.

He just had to make it through a few weeks, and he’d be able to start fighting the only enemy that mattered. He just had to turn seventeen, first. Get rid of the trace. And then he could start hunting Horcruxes. 

***

There was quite a lot of work to be done. Harry was going to be moved, and soon, and all of the Deatheaters were vying to be the one to provide the crucial intel. Severus, of course, had the only information that was worth anything at all. He’d confunded Mundungus Fletcher already, and planted the idea of multiple decoys, and reported the correct extraction date, but still the others wanted to try. And try they did. Yaxley in particular was quite adamant that his information was correct, which it was not. The meeting was contentious, and Severus, having to watch helplessly as his former colleague Charity Burbage begged him for rescue and was then murdered right in front of him, was not in much mood to play when Draco caught up with him outside his door. 

“Professor Snape.” Draco grabbed his arm out of the shadows, and Severus turned to look at him, and then at his hand, feeling quite scornful. Scornful, and angry, and not at all benevolent. 

“Good evening Draco,” he hissed. “Do you need help with your homework?” He jerked his arm away. “Or is it something else?” He knew what it was, of course. Draco looked more than grey. He looked almost yellow, like an old waxwork. 

“Can we talk - privately?” 

“No.” Severus grabbed the front of his shirt and thrust him against the wall, holding him there with his fist, and Draco gasped in fear and then pressed his lips together, hard. “I think I can guess what you want from me. Has some underling expressed more interest in you than I have?” 

“Rowle,” Draco whispered back. “He likes… boys. Young ones.” Rowle had been in the tower with them. He’d seen Draco fold. And, knowing Rowle, he’d probably wanted Draco right then. Rowle did like boys. Defenseless ones.

“Well, what a tragedy that you are so young.” 

Draco grimaced, but then schooled the expression off of his face and replaced it with something that would have looked more at home on a slave. Abject servility, like he hoped that was what Severus wanted to see. But there was more than that. There was terror _._ “Please,” he breathed. “Professor Snape, please.” 

He was hearing that a lot, today. _Please, please, please. Please, Severus, save me. Please, Severus, please._ His lip curled back in disgust, and he almost just walked away. But, then, he saw something that gave him pause. Looking down at his former pupil, Severus could see in his eyes that Draco knew he had no say at all in his own fate, but could only beg. So, here he was, begging. For compassion. For rescue. For someone to step in, if only for a moment. And hadn’t Severus seen that same expression on Harry’s face? That desperate need? Draco was just like Harry, but _weaker._

His stomach turned over. How dare this boy put a thought like that into his head? Draco was nothing like Harry. Draco was a _snake._

“Shall I claim you, then?” he hissed. “Do you seek my grace, now, after all? How you must regret speaking so disrespectfully to me at school.” _I could have saved you. I tried. But you wanted the glory, didn’t you? You wanted to be His favorite. Well, look at you, now. Begging for mercy._

“I seek whatever you have for me,” Draco answered softly. “Just please - tell Him that you’ve - changed your mind.” 

_Revolting._

“You tell me something, Draco. Was it worth it? Do you feel the approval of your master, now?” _Now that your useless father has no wand, and there is no one to save you but me._

“Please,” he whispered. “Please.” 

Severus sneered at him, an awful thought popping into his brain. “You must think that if I had Potter, I was gentle. But I wasn’t. I made him scream.” Draco just closed his eyes, like what he really wanted was to be put out of his misery.

“I don’t need gentle,” he breathed. “I just don’t want a - stranger.”

_Oh, God._

A lance of pity and disgust stabbed through Severus’ heart, and suddenly, he wondered - did it matter if Draco was nothing like Harry? If Draco had made terrible mistakes? He was still a boy. And what would have happened to Harry if he, too, was a pure-blood Wizard? If he’d been born the prized, lovely son of an ancient family, fallen from grace - what would have been done to him? No tender youth was spared in times like these. 

He released his hold on Draco’s robes and braced his hands on either side of his head. “Since you’re begging so nicely, tell me this,” he whispered. Draco’s eyes were still closed, but he nodded desperately. “How good is your Occlumency?”

“It’s good,” he answered softly. “I blocked you, didn’t I?”

“So you did.” Severus pulled away. “I’ll consider it.” Then, he went into his room, and closed the door in Draco’s face. 

He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his eyes, wondering what in Merlin’s name he was supposed to do about this. Draco had dug his own grave. He’d taken the Mark. He’d gone willingly into Hogwarts as an agent of the Dark Lord. He’d passed information to the Deatheaters many times. He tried to cast the cruciatus on Harry Potter himself, right in the corridors of the school. Brazen. Shameless. Like he thought he was invincible. Well, now he knew he wasn’t, didn’t he?

Severus imagined doing nothing to save him. He imagined seeing Draco, drifting around the manor, looking as he did now, knowing that he’d been taken as a slave. He imagined how he’d be treated. Lucius obviously had neither the power nor the will to protect him. But… Severus did have the power. He was the Dark Lord’s favorite son, and if he claimed Draco as his own, no one else would dare touch him. But should he? Did Draco deserve his compassion, now, after making him show those terrible things to the Dark Lord? Those horrific lies about the only person on earth Severus really cared about.

Harry.

He imagined telling Harry that he’d stood by and permitted Draco’s brutal rape, when he had the power to prevent it. How might Harry look at him? He’d probably need to use his trigger point, just to hear him say it. And that was the only standard of behavior that mattered to Severus, now, wasn’t it? What would Harry Potter think of him? 

He pushed back his sleeve and looked at the cuff on his wrist. He was trying not to look at it too much, because every time he saw it he was filled with a fresh wave of excruciating regret, and those fucking cracks instantly spiderwebbed all through his barriers, and a torrent of worries poured into his brain. _Was Harry sleeping? Was Harry eating? Was the trigger point still working? Were his muggle relatives hurting him? How did he look? How was he feeling? Was he alone? Who was looking after him?_

So, he tried not to look at the cuff very much.

Harry was gone. Severus did not have him. All he had, now, to give structure to his life, was his own internal understanding of what Harry would want. And Harry would want him to step in, if he could. No matter the enmity between their houses, or all their history, or what Harry surely had seen in the tower - Harry would want Draco to be spared. It didn’t matter what Draco deserved or didn’t deserve. All that mattered was what sort of man Harry would want Severus to be. And Harry would want Severus to be the sort of man that would save a boy in danger, no matter who that boy was. He knew it, absolutely. There was no question.

Harry would want him to do it, so Severus did. The next day, he went to the Dark Lord and asked for Draco as a prize. Voldemort found his change of heart very amusing, seeming to think that Severus was only interested in depriving Rowle. Which was true, of course, but not in the way he thought.

“My dear Severus, you are so territorial.”

“You know me, my Lord. You’ve known me for twenty years. I do not share.”

“So you don’t,” Voldemort laughed. “Have him, then. He’s yours. Take care not to be too tender with him, though. He needs to develop a tougher skin.”

“I have never been tender with anyone, my Lord, and I do not intend to begin now.”

That afternoon, the Dark Lord sent Severus away to gather intel from Grimmauld Place, though there was very little to be found. The Order had left nothing of substance behind, really. Just some truly frivolous jinxes obviously placed to try and frighten him off. The only one that did anything at all was the Tong-tie curse, though the dust-phantom did rather startle him. What really affected him, though, was something that had nothing to do with the Order. Number Twelve was where he’d found Harry. _His_ Harry. Secret, in the dark of early morning, under the very noses of every single person tasked to protect him.

Being there, in the kitchen where Harry threw a glass at him, in the library where Lupin assaulted him, and in his bedroom, where Harry slept beside him for the first time - he could feel the heat of his hidden thoughts wanting to break out. He’d have to shore them up before he returned to Malfoy Manor. But first, there was something else he wanted to do. 

The idea came to him in his old room, looking down at the bed, as he wondered when Harry would come there. It might take a while, but surely he would. Surely he would stand right in that room, whenever he came to Number Twelve. He’d probably stand just where Severus was standing, and look at the bed, as Severus was looking at it. He’d probably think about Dreamless Sleep, and about all the time they had wasted, as Severus was thinking, now. All the time they could have been together, if Severus hadn’t been so terribly stubborn. 

***

When he returned to the Manor some time later, gave the Dark Lord his report, and retired to his room, he found Draco sitting on his bed like a prostitute, looking like he regretted every choice he’d ever made in his entire life. 

Severus closed and warded the door behind him. 

“So many of us realize only too late what we’ve done with our lives, eh, Draco?” he asked. Draco just looked at the floor and folded his hands in between his knees. “Don’t look so terrified. You can’t possibly think I’ll actually do anything to you.” Draco looked back up.

“But - ” he began. “I thought - ”

“That I’m a rapist? How charitable.” Severus conjured a chair and sat in it. “Come now. I told you back in the hospital wing that I would clean up after you, and so I shall. But I want something from you, first.”

“Anything,” Draco whispered, hugging his shoulders in.

“You went to the Dark Lord with information on Potter,” Severus said, and waited.

“Yes,” Draco answered. 

“Was that the right decision for you to make?” 

“I…” Draco searched his eyes. “... no?”

“If I am to help you, I want you to swear to me that you will not make that mistake again. Not ever. Do you understand?” Severus could see in his expression that he did not understand why he would ask for such a thing, but Severus did not want him to understand why, he just wanted him to promise. “Swear to me.”

“I swear,” Draco said. “I’ll never say - anything. Ever again. I swear.”

“If you go back on your word, I will know, and I will make you wish you were never born.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.” 

He looked so grateful that for a moment Severus wondered if he might become an ally someday. But, no, Draco was too vindictive. He had too many faces. Severus was going to help him, not trust him. If Draco kept his promise it would be because of his fear, not because he felt any loyalty towards Severus or anyone else.

“Very good.” He steepled his fingers together. “Well, I'm afraid I will need to see your body, Draco. Your skin. Your scars. Any identifying marks. And we will need to give you some bruises.”

  
  



	12. Dear Draco

Severus sent Draco out half an hour later with a black eye and a red and swollen mouth. The black eye Severus gave him with a well-placed backhanded slap. The swollen mouth, Draco gave himself, at Severus’ instruction. He’d gone into the bathroom for that, and Severus was not sure what exactly he’d done to himself, but when he came out he looked suitably used. So, Severus let him go, hoping that Draco was smart enough to sell it. Because Severus was about to spend a lot of energy mapping Draco’s hair and skin, _sectumsempra_ scars and all, onto some of his memories of Harry’s body, and if Draco couldn’t hold up his side of their arrangement, it would be a waste. 

If Draco acted well enough, though, the Dark Lord would never look into his mind to see if it was real. It was Severus who would be called to show what he’d done to this new plaything of his, because the Dark Lord hated victims. He did not care to see from the perspective of the abused, he only wanted to see through the eyes of the abusers. That was what he liked, and Severus knew that. So all Draco needed to do to protect himself was to seem pathetic. And he was pathetic, so it should be easy.

It was Lucius’ murderous stares that first let Severus know that Draco was, indeed, smart enough. He’d obviously gone crying to his parents to tell them what Severus had ‘done’ to him, and whatever he’d said, it was convincing. The hatred in Lucius’ eyes was so strong it was almost a physical force. But Severus knew that he would not dare attempt any reprisal, so he just gave him a solemn little nod whenever he passed. It was sad, really, to see him like that. Lucius Malfoy - once so powerful - now too weak even to defend his own son from assault. Severus felt nothing but pity for him. And that was certainly a new feeling to have for _Lucius Malfoy._

***

The first time Harry went into his magic at the Dursley’s, he stayed for only a split second. It was a test run, to see if the Ministry could detect the magic of it. For, though it was patently ridiculous after all that had happened, Harry was not allowed to do magic out of school until his birthday, which was still almost two weeks away. But no warning came, and when he did it again and then jerked immediately back out, still, there was nothing. Harry figured maybe that was because he was pulling his magic _in,_ not sending it _out_. So, he could still have that small comfort, here, in his muggle prison. 

He spent most of his time in the wasteland, in fact. Exploring it. It was kind of interesting how quickly the destruction occurred after Severus left him. It was immediate. Involuntary. Like his soul had been scorched by some outside force. And it wasn’t even dirt. Inside his magic, there was stone under his feet, with a thin, powdery coating of ash. Even the sky was a poisonous grey - like there was smoke high up in the atmosphere, blotting out the sun. How had he done that to himself? When, exactly, had it happened? When he’d seen Dumbledore blasted out over the battlements? When he’d realized that Severus wasn’t coming back for him? When he woke up in the hospital wing to see Remus Lupin sitting at his bedside? What, exactly, had done it?

Before Severus left, changing the field had felt so easy it was like breathing. But now, no inspiration came. It seemed perfect, actually. It didn’t need to be changed. It was desolate, and empty, and charred, just like he was.

Sometimes Harry stayed down so long that it was only Uncle Vernon hammering on the door that yanked him back out of it. He might go under right after breakfast and come up to see that it was dark outside, with a high moon. But that was good, really. It made the days go faster. He just wanted to fight, that was all, because he knew that fighting was the only way out. Only when Voldemort was dead could anything change. Only when the war was over, could Severus find him again. Because he’d promised that he would, when it was done. He’d promised.

_I will find you. No matter what._

Harry touched his cuff and then took his hand away, and then went over to his trunk to look at the fake Horcrux. Turning it over and over in his hand, he remembered what it had taken to get it. How he’d forced Dumbledore to drink and drink and drink, and how, near the end, the man that had lifted him out of his muggle squalor screamed for death. Well, he’d gotten his wish, hadn’t he? Dumbledore begged for death, and Severus killed him.

Harry pressed his thumb into his wrist and counted to five, and then he went out into the hall to take a shower. He wasn’t sure when he’d last had one, but he felt dirty. Filthy, even, like what he really wanted was to peel off his skin.

He didn’t make it to the bathroom, though. About half-way there, Dudley intercepted him. Harry’d had pretty good luck in avoiding his cousin since the Order left. The great oaf was so cowed after meeting Kingsley and Mr. Weasley that Harry had the impression they must have threatened him. But now, he was apparently all better. Maybe he wanted revenge on Harry for bringing magical people into his house. He might. And if he did, Harry was probably about to get his wish.

“Hey freak,” Dudley called. “Too bad your freak friends had to leave you here. You’re stinking up the place.” Harry turned impassively to look at him. His huge, hulking mass, almost filling the hallway. 

“I’m not staying long,” he said. “Wouldn’t want Voldemort to brutally murder you and your family just because I’m here.” Dudley turned white, and then red. He was growing up to be just like his father, wasn’t he? A big, stupid, purple bully. 

“Yeah, well, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He pointed at Harry’s wrist. “I know you’re a _freak_ , but are you a queer now, too?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“That’s a nice bracelet. Like something a poof would wear. Did your boyfriend give that to you?”

“What?” Harry asked again. He looked at his wrist and then back at his cousin. His own voice sounded far away, like he was listening to the conversation through a long tunnel. “What did you just say to me?” 

_Kill him._

“I _said,”_ Dudley drawled, “are you a fucking _queer?”_ He snorted unkindly. “I don’t know why I’m even asking. I always knew you were. What kind of girl would want a little twerp like _you?_ Bet you can really take a cock, though.” 

For a full second, Harry just stared blankly at him, taking in his size, and his ugly, arrogant sneer, and wishing with all his heart that he’d already come of age so he could curse Dudley Dursley into the ground. But he didn’t have any magic. He just had his body. So, without speaking, he walked right over to his cousin and kicked him, hard, in the groin. Dudley didn’t seem at all prepared for any retaliation. Maybe he thought Harry would just take his abuse like he always had. But that wasn’t who Harry was anymore, and when Dudley doubled over in pain, he grabbed the back of his head with both hands and put a knee into his face. There was a satisfying sort of crunching sensation, and Dudley fell forward, blood pouring out of his nose like a faucet. 

“Ask me again if I’m a queer,” Harry said, standing over him. “Go on, ask me again. Say, _‘are you a fucking queer, you freak?’”_ Dudley moaned wetly, touching his face. “Go on, Dudley. Little Diddy-kins. Ask me again.” Harry raised his foot as if to kick him again, and Dudley flinched back. “Go on. ASK ME.” Dudley didn’t ask again. Dudley didn’t say anything at all, in fact, he just looked down at the pool of blood collecting in his lap, and then back at Harry like he’d never seen him before in his life. “Pig,” Harry spat, and turned on his heel. Stomping back to his room, he slammed the door, and then fell back against it and closed his eyes. 

He counted his breaths. Two-two. That was too fast. Severus would tell him to try for a three-five, probably. Or slower than that. 

Focusing hard, he almost didn’t realize he’d touched his cuff, and he wrenched his hand away before his thought could coalesce into a message. His desperate, desperate wish - _come get me. Please, Severus. Come take me away._

Severus couldn’t come get him. Severus could not take him away.

He was probably sitting at the right hand of Voldemort at that very moment. Maybe Malfoy was there, too. 

Harry turned around and dug his forehead into the wall, and his thumb into his trigger point, and counted. And then he heard Aunt Petunia shrieking. 

The Dursley’s called the police, which wasn’t very effective. All the responding officers did was take one look at how small Harry was compared to Dudley, give him a little scolding about not starting fights, and ask if he was ok. Harry just nodded very meekly, trying to seem like he wouldn’t do it again the next chance he got, and it was apparently so convincing that one of the officers looked suspiciously at Dudley, with the pack of frozen peas on his face, like he thought Dudley had probably started it. That officer slipped Harry his card before he left, too. In case he ever needed _help._

The main effect of that outburst was that Dudley seemed to develop a healthy sense of respect for Harry. He even left a cup of tea for him outside his door one morning. Odd thing to do, that. Harry stepped in it. But Dudley didn’t try to lay a single finger on him in revenge. Didn’t even make eye contact with him, actually.

He should have done that so much earlier. 

***

Severus did not hurt Draco more than was necessary. The main thing he had to do was create evidence, not real pain. So, Severus tied his hands with cord and bade him struggle out of it so that friction burns were scraped into his wrists. He crushed bruises into his upper arms and raked his nails down his neck and back. Teeth marks would have been ideal, of course, but he could not quite bring himself to do that. The other things would have to be good enough. Together with his new falsified memories, though, he was sure they would be.

For Draco’s part, he took to trailing around behind Severus in a t-shirt, his bruises on display, all through the house. He started sitting on the floor at Severus’ feet in the Manor library looking downtrodden and humiliated and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Severus didn’t like it. He didn’t like seeing the red crescents his fingernails had left in the back of Draco’s neck, or having him at his feet, or how the other Deatheaters looked at him - like it was terribly normal - even enviable - to have someone to torture at his leisure. To them, of course, it was normal. The Dark Lord wanted Draco to be subjugated, and so he would be. Which, of course, was why Severus was doing this in the first place. At least he didn’t have to act affectionate.

So, he tolerated it as Draco sat next to him at meals, with his shoulders hugged in and his eyes downcast, and as he followed him deferentially up to his room almost every night. In there, Severus would ward the door, and check Draco’s marks, and Draco would read for a while in silence. Severus used that time to meditate over his barriers, checking them for wear and tear or weakened areas. He had to do that practically every day, just as he’d feared. It was like his love for Harry was corrosive - eating away at even the most powerful magic in short order if left alone. 

So, they would sit in silence, and then, once a suitable period of time had passed, Draco would bite his own lips bloody, make himself cry, and go back down to his parents. Sometimes, when he left, he put on a little limp. He was a pretty good actor, and Severus could tell he was trying his absolute best to make it very clear to everyone that he was, indeed, being regularly violated by Severus Snape. That Severus owned him, and that everyone else should keep away. It seemed to be working, too, and after a while, the Dark Lord summoned Severus to his study to inquire, and Severus sat very still as Voldemort looked into his mind, and laughed, and told him he had ‘quite the appetite.’

And that meant Draco was safe. At least for now. 

But then, it was time to move against Harry, and it went very poorly for all parties involved. The Order did rather well with the decoy Potters, and the twenty-nine other Deatheaters sent to capture Harry and kill his defenders were shocked and confused as fourteen people rose up in their midst - seven Harrys, and seven members of the Order. Even Severus didn’t know which one was real, and he used that fact to control his emotional response, telling himself that maybe none of them was really him. None of them was really _his_ Harry. 

But, of course, one of them was. And so, when one of the other Deatheaters aimed a killing curse right at Lupin and one of the Potters, Severus was not quite sure enough that Harry would refuse to share a broom with Lupin not to try to protect him. He brandished his wand, meaning to strike the Deatheater’s arm, but, in the chaos, he missed badly, and hit Lupin’s Potter right on the side of the head. Blood sprayed everywhere, and Severus knew a moment of pure horror before it became clear that the real Harry - _his_ Harry - was somewhere else. 

It was Avery’s scream that alerted him - _“That’s him! That’s the real Potter!”_ And it had almost been over right then. The Dark Lord switched from one Potter to another - and, God help him, it was the one with Hagrid, and they fell right out of the sky just inside the safehouse’s perimeter. It was only Voldemort’s scream of rage that shocked Severus out of his sudden immobility. His mind had been transported instantly back to seeing Harry pitch off his broom from his office window. What had Ron said? If the beaters hadn’t caught him, he would have broken his neck.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on that fear, though. Some of their number were dead, and the bodies needed to be retrieved. They took Mad-Eye, too, and when they returned with their casualties to Malfoy Manor, the Dark Lord’s rage was terrible to behold. Every single one of them was punished, but none so harshly as Severus himself. It was his plan, after all, and it had failed. 

Severus was held under the cruciatus for so long that the blood vessels in his eyes burst, but he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he deserved much worse. His plan had come far too close to being successful. And he had let Harry _fall._

Back in his room, he wrapped himself in blankets and waited for the shaking to subside. Someone needed to tell Harry that the time for _expelliarmus_ had passed. Someone needed to tell him that his life was at stake and he had to defend himself properly. Someone needed to tell him that he was too important - he was _so important -_ that he was the most important thing on earth - and he couldn’t be worrying about the safety of other people. He had to worry about _himself._

God, he’d fallen from so high - he must be horribly injured. Who was taking care of him? Someone needed to make sure he was alright. Who was with him? Surely someone had healed him. Surely someone was with him, now. Surely he wasn’t _alone._

There was a small tap at his door, and Draco Malfoy appeared with a bottle. _Draco._ How did _Draco_ dare intrude on him, now? _Draco,_ the paltry substitute for the person Severus was really supposed to be protecting. _Draco,_ with Severus’ bruises on his face.

“What?” he snarled. 

“I brought you a restorative,” Draco said softly. “You were screaming for a long time.”

“Get out of here.”

“Professor Snape.”

“GET OUT!” He hurled the water glass from his nightstand at him and Draco flinched back as it shattered, yanking the door closed again. Severus’ head swam from the sudden movement and he put it down towards his knees, spots dancing before his eyes.

Harry had fallen. 

Harry had fallen. 

_Harry had fallen._

***

Harry had fallen, but he was ok. Tonks’ father healed his broken ribs, and his arm, and his knocked out teeth in short order, and now he was at the Burrow, waiting to turn seventeen so he could escape. Every moment he stayed in the company of these people was another moment they might die because of him, and that was almost intolerable. The guilt. And his trigger point didn’t seem to work that well on _guilt._

Mad-Eye was dead. George had lost an ear. And Hedwig - poor Hedwig. All because of him. More death, more violence, more sacrifice and more trauma laid at his feet.

At least everyone else had made it back. Even Lupin, who’d been escorting George when he was hit. Lupin, who, when they arrived at the Burrow, grabbed him - _shook_ him - and demanded he prove he was really Harry and not an imposter. 

“I wrote Harry Potter a letter,” he hissed into Harry’s face. “What did I write?”

“You wrote that Severus Snape was a snake,” Harry snarled back, shaking him off. “I am Harry. And I thought I told you not to _touch me.”_

That was when Lupin told him that it was Severus who’d hurt George - that Severus had been there, trying to kill him, just like all the other Deatheaters. Harry didn’t really mean to say what he said next. He’d been trying to pretend that Lupin wasn’t even there. But he was afraid, and angry, and guilty, and his scar was hurting, and Lupin had grabbed him, and it just popped out of his mouth.

“George looked like me, though, didn’t he? Severus would never curse _me._ He was probably aiming for _you.”_

For a moment, Lupin just looked wounded. But then his face contorted, and he started shouting. Harry didn’t shout back or try to make him stop, or anything. He just stood there and took it.

_“How can you defend him? Are you insane? What did he do to you? Severus Snape is a monster. He’s a murderer. He’s a liar and a cheat. He betrayed you. He killed your mother. He killed Dumbledore. You saw him do it. You were there!”_

Harry didn’t lift a finger to defend himself, but Hagrid almost ripped out the door frame trying to get into the room. “Oi! What’re ya doin ta Harry?” He struggled harder, getting one arm and leg through. “Stop that! Stop shoutin’ at ‘im!”

“It’s ok,” Harry said, as Hagrid finally burst into the room. He met Lupin’s eyes without expression, though a searing pain lanced through his forehead at that very moment. “You can shout all you want. You can hit me, too, if you think it’ll make you feel better.”

Lupin opened his mouth to retort but then closed it before he said anything else. He looked shocked, and then disgusted, and then chastened and rather ashamed, and he didn’t speak to Harry again, or try to follow him out into the garden when he left the room.

Harry’d gone outside hoping that a bit of fresh air would clear his head, but it didn’t. The pain in his scar just continued to build and build and build, and out there in the dark, behind the chicken coup, it suddenly peaked, and he was knocked to his knees. 

His first thought as the agony flooded him was that he wanted Severus, and he dug his fingers deep into the damp earth to keep from touching his bracelet. But then, out of nowhere, he heard another voice say that precious name. A high, clear voice, full of rage. One that he hadn’t heard inside his own skull for over a year.

_“You said nothing of decoy Potters! What an unforgivable lapse, Severus. Unforgivable!”_

Into his mind burst a vision of Severus screaming and twisting in torment on a stone floor. Screaming and screaming and _screaming._

_“You allowed him to escape yet again! No matter if the auror is dead. I wanted Potter!”_

“Harry?” 

It was over as quickly as it had come, leaving Harry shaking, his heart hammering, staring blindly at the damp grass. He pressed his thumb hard into his trigger point, fighting the urge to be sick. Severus was being tortured right at that very moment, for letting Harry escape. Right at that moment, Severus was shrieking under the cruciatus, wherever he was, and there was nothing he could do. There was no one that could help him. 

“Harry?”

He looked up, panting, to see Ron and Hermione’s legs.

“Are you alright?” Hermione asked. “Harry?” She offered him her hand, and he took it. “You’re all - cold,” she said. “Oh, you look awful. What are you doing out here?” 

“He’s angry I escaped,” he answered, trembling so hard he could hardly stand. “He’s r-really angry I got away.” _He blames Severus. He’s torturing Severus. God, that screaming._

“What?” Hermione gasped. “You had a vision? But Harry! I thought they were gone! I thought that connection had closed!”

“So did I.” 

***

It took Harry a while to be able to pretend to be ok after that, though things were very busy at the Burrow. It helped a little, he supposed, being kept so busy. It kept his mind occupied while he waited the last few days until he came of age, and it kept him from dwelling too much on Severus’ screams. At least, during the daytime. For there was going to be a wedding, and after that, he, Ron and Hermione were going to leave. Mrs. Weasley seemed to think that if she kept the three of them apart, they wouldn’t be able to plan their escape. But she underestimated them. They still planned, and packed, and Harry spent every night pacing back and forth in the wasteland, thinking about Horcruxes. 

He had never before in his life felt such purpose. It consumed him - the desire to finish the war, no matter what it took. It was all he could think about.

Well. 

It was all he tried to think about, anyway. 

He couldn’t control what he dreamed, but he didn’t sleep very much, so it was ok. 

Two nights later he had another vision, just as he and Ron were getting ready for bed. But that time, there was no warning at all. No prickling, no tingling, just a single flash of incredible agony, and a fury so strong that, for the fraction of a second before the pain overcame him, he was absolutely sure Severus was dead. 

But it wasn’t Severus. It was Ollivander, emaciated and dressed in rags, screaming that he didn’t know why Harry’s wand had acted of its own accord. That he had no idea why using another wand didn’t break the connection between the twin cores. That he didn’t mean to do it - it hadn’t been a lie - please, please stop - _please. Please - I beg you - mercy -_

“HARRY! Merlin, HARRY!” Ron was shaking him, and when he opened his eyes he was flat on the floor of the attic bedroom, drenched in sweat. 

“I’m ok - I’m ok - Please don’t yell,” he panted, propping himself up on his elbows. “I’m ok.” Ron looked terrified.

“You were screaming! What did you see?”

“Ollivander. It was Ollivander. He’s… a prisoner.” He swallowed hard. “Voldemort was torturing him. Something about… my wand.”

***

It took three days for Severus to feel normal at all again. For the trembling to stop, at least. By that time, too, the Dark Lord had fully turned his wrath towards the captive Ollivander, trapped in the basement, and Severus was firmly back in his favor. His information had been good, after all, even though Potter had slipped through their fingers. Potter, the consummate survivor. Potter, the Boy Who Lived, still alive. 

It was that very day that Severus realized with an uncomfortable jolt that Harry’s birthday had come at last. He was seventeen, finally. No longer a boy, but a man, and Severus wondered if anyone was giving him any gifts. If anyone was celebrating him, wherever he was. He hoped so.

And then, against his will, he remembered tossing Harry onto his bed.

_“Marry me.”_

And Harry, high on Felix Felicis.

_“Don’t think I won’t! Ask me on my seventeenth birthday.”_

He’d warned Harry to stop laughing that night, but now he felt he might sell his soul to hear Harry laugh just one more time. And Merlin, he was absolutely _sure_ he’d hidden that memory. He _knew he had hidden it -_ yet here it was to torture him.

There was a brittle, cracking sensation inside him, like his bones were made of chalk, and suddenly, Severus badly wanted to get blackout drunk. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let his guard down for even a single moment. He was living in a house with the Dark Lord himself. He was surrounded by serpents. He had to stay vigilant at all times. But oh, Holy Lord, did he want to get drunk. 

Instead, he sat on his bed, stone sober, warded the door, stuffed the memory of Harry’s laughter back into the pit, and pulled up his sleeve. 

He thought about trying to say something. But what could he say? 

_Happy Birthday, sorry for almost killing you. Sorry for killing Albus. Sorry for cursing someone's ear off, I do so hope that it wasn’t yours. Sorry for breaking your heart. Sorry for leaving you. Sorry for making you scream like that._ _Sorry for letting you fall._

Maybe he could just send _I’m sorry_ by itself. Or… _I love you._

But, no.

He should let Harry speak first. Harry might hate him. He might have taken the bracelet off and destroyed it. If he didn’t believe what Severus had said - if he thought Severus had been lying - he surely would have destroyed it. He would have ripped it off of his hand the night Severus left him. Left him there, in the wet grass, screaming his name.

He should just wait. If Harry wanted to speak, he would.

Severus spun his cuff around his wrist and thought about killing himself.

But then someone knocked on his door, breaking into his reverie, and Severus, thinking it must be Draco, pulled down his sleeve and got up to answer. But it wasn’t Draco. It was Peter Pettigrew.

“Sorry to disturb you, Severus,” he said, an unpleasant light in his eyes. He’d been the one tasked to punish Severus after the failed kidnapping, and he’d seemed rather to enjoy it. “But I think someone is trying to borrow your property.”

“Pardon me?”

“Out in the courtyard, behind the servants quarters,” he wheezed. 

Of course, Severus had only one piece of property that might be _borrowed_ out behind the servants quarters. 

  
  



	13. Harry on the Loose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is staying healthy! Keep commenting it's my only source of social interaction and motivates me to write faster!

Draco had been disarmed, that much was abundantly clear. He was against the wall with both hands held out and an expression of mortal terror on his face. It was Rowle who had cornered him, as Severus assumed it would be, and he was twirling Draco’s wand between his fingers with a feral leer. 

“Get on your knees and I’ll go easy, Draco,” Rowle said, taking hold of Draco’s jaw with one large hand. “Wouldn’t want to bruise that pretty face of yours, would I? I can be nicer than Snape, if you’re good.”

“Can I help you?” Severus asked. They both turned to look at him and Draco gasped like he’d just been cut from the gallows.

“Snape,” Rowle said, without dropping his hand. “I thought you were - ”

“Not within screaming distance?” Severus flicked his wand and knocked Rowle back a step. “That’s my property you’re handling.”

“Oh, is it?” Rowle asked, looking back at Draco pressed against the wall. “He seemed like he could use a little handling. I thought maybe you were done with him.” Severus sneered and flicked his wand again, and Rowle’ head snapped back like he’d been punched. 

“You seem to be labouring under the false impression that I have fallen in status, Rowle,” he drawled. “I think you’ll find that I haven’t. And I think you’ll find that I do not share, nor do I take kindly to _thieves._ If you touch what’s mine again I will kill you.” Rowle was a lot bigger than he was, but that didn’t matter. Magic was what mattered. Magic, and the favor of the Dark Lord. And Severus had both of those in spades, as Rowle well knew. So, when Rowle recovered from the blow, he controlled his expression, and did not look at Draco again. Severus was almost disappointed. It might feel good to hurt someone. 

He held out his hand. 

“His wand, if you please.” 

“My apologies, Snape,” Rowle said, handing it over. “I didn’t know you were quite so … fond of him.”

“I am not fond of him. I own him,” Severus answered coldly, and then jerked his head at Draco without looking at him. “Come, Draco.” 

He turned on his heel. He could hear Draco scrambling after him, all the way back inside the manor and up the stairs, and he did not slow for him.

As the door to his room closed, Draco fell into his arms. 

“Thank you,” he gasped. “Thank you, I thought he-”

Severus shoved him away. “Get off of me,” he spat, brushing off his robes. “Control yourself.” Draco stumbled back against the wall, startled.

“Sorry,” he said. “You just - you saved me.”

“I am aware of that.” Severus glared back at him and crossed his arms, but then sighed. Harry would want him to be kind. Or - if not kind, at least - not cruel. Draco was very pale. Maybe Severus had been… late. “Did he hurt you?” 

Draco looked at the floor. “No,” he said. “Not really. He just - took my wand.”

“I saw. You should be more careful.” If Pettigrew hadn’t retrieved him, that would have been it, and all of this nonsense would have been for nothing. “If I hadn’t come…”

“I know,” Draco whispered, folding his arms around himself. “He cornered me. I wasn’t - wasn’t prepared.” He grimaced at his own legs, and when he looked back up, Severus almost recoiled at the wretched gratitude on his face _._ “Thank you.”

“Well, I doubt he will make another attempt.” Severus wanted Draco to leave, and he wanted him to leave _now._ He didn’t like that expression at all. Draco needed to leave. Shrink back to the servants quarters with his useless father. 

“Would you really kill him if he tried again?” he asked.

“Yes.” 

“But… why? Why are you doing this for me? After everything I…”

“Why?” Severus scoffed, and turned away. _Because it’s Harry’s birthday, and Harry would want me to save you because he’s a good person. Unlike all of us._ “Because it’s the right thing to do. A Deatheater I may be, but I am not in the habit of abusing children.” He stopped, appalled by his sudden lapse. He certainly _was_ supposed to be in the habit of abusing children. That was the whole entire _point._ He was letting his guard down. “As of late.” _Weak. Come on. Fucking stop thinking about Harry it’s going to get you killed._

Draco was silent for a long moment, and Severus did not look around. He could feel Draco’s eyes on his back, like they were searching for a better answer than the one he’d just given. 

“He… didn’t want you to leave,” Draco began slowly. “He wasn’t chasing you to fight. He was… screaming for you. To come back for him. I heard it.” 

_He._

_HE?_

Severus whipped back around and grabbed him by the throat. “If you say another word I will hand you right back to Rowle,” he growled. “To _Greyback.”_

“Sorry,” Draco squeaked, and Severus thrust him away.

“Get out. Now.” 

Draco didn’t just leave, he backed out like he was afraid Severus might stick a knife in his spine. And maybe he would have, if he’d had a knife. Because Draco had sworn never to speak of Harry again, and he’d just _spoken of him,_ hadn’t he? As if Severus didn’t know Harry was screaming for him. As if he didn’t hear that sound every time he tried to sleep. 

As the door closed, Severus slammed his fist hard against the wall and then rested his forehead there. He just had to make it to Hogwarts. Once he made it there he could drink himself into a stupor, if he wanted. He could tunnel into his hidden memories and wallow in his shame. He just had to wait until the Ministry fell, and he could leave this hellscape. He could have a little privacy again, to punish himself, once the Ministry fell. 

And then, the very next day, it did fall. 

The coup was quick and nearly bloodless after all the work they’d done to infiltrate the Ministry’s highest levels, and Scrimgeour was captured in short order, and Pius Thicknesse installed in his place. Severus, as the Dark Lord’s favored lieutenant, was given the highest possible honor of personally torturing the former Minister for information. 

It took a long time. Scrimgeour was strong. He absolutely refused to give up anything at all as to the whereabouts of Harry Potter, no matter what Severus did to him. And Severus was not kind, nor was he merciful - for he could not be. He treated the good Minister to the full spectrum of physical and psychological pain, but still, Scrimgeour did not break. He did not speak at all, in fact, other than a single sentence, near the end. Spitting out a mouthful of blood and teeth onto the hem of Severus’ robes, he’d said: “his _guardian_ , are you?” and that was all. Severus almost respected him for that. For protecting Harry when it mattered.

But he killed him anyway, once he was through. It was easy. For although the Minister had not given Harry up under duress, he had still cornered Harry at the Burrow. He’d upset him, and tried to use him. He’d tried to take advantage of Harry’s vulnerability, and that was unforgivable. Harry disliked the Minister, and now he was dead, and that was all. 

That job kept Severus from the Weasley wedding, too, which was a small mercy. He had no desire to kill or capture any of the other members of the Order, or any of the Weasleys, or any of Harry’s friends, if he could avoid it. But that reprieve had a terrible back side to it, for he didn’t know what had become of Harry for some time. 

It wasn’t until Dolohov and Rowle skulked back to Headquarters with their tails between their legs and no idea where they’d been, that he got some idea. They’d obviously been Obliviated, and that made Severus think that maybe Harry and his friends were on the loose, wreaking havoc. That was good. That made him feel a little better while he washed Scrimgeour’s blood out of his hair and scrubbed it from under his nails. Harry must have made it out, and was on the run, Obliviating Deatheaters.

Once Severus got out of the shower, he knew without a doubt that Harry had escaped, as Dolohov’s and Rowle’s screams echoed through the halls. Clearly, the Dark Lord had broken the memory charm and was punishing them, and nothing but a botched Potter-sighting made him quite that angry. Severus went out into the hall to listen, just in time to hear the Dark Lord order Draco to administer another dose of his _displeasure._

He stayed for a while, hoping for details, but there were none to be heard. Just screaming. Listening to it, he hoped Draco’s cruciatus was strong. For Rowle, at least, he was sure that it was. Rowle might even be executed if his brush with Harry was close enough. Maybe Draco would get to do that, too. He doubted that dispatching a despicable rapist would damage Draco’s soul at all. It might even restore him, in some way, knowing that he’d taken a monster like that out of the world. And, of course, he’d be a little safer, then, too.

***

By the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally made it to Number Twelve, they were all three in such a state of anxiety that Harry was quite blindsided by the defensive charms in the entryway. Moody’s voice shouting _Severus Snape,_ and the tongue-tie curse, and then the ghostly apparition of Dumbledore sent him right into a panic. Hermione screamed, and Harry screamed, and the Portrait of Mrs. Black screamed, and Ron was the one to silence the painting, and he pulled Hermione in against his chest, and looked at Harry hyperventilating against the wall, and shouted at him.

“HARRY! MATE! Do that thing you do with your arm before you pass out!”

***

“How did they find us?” Hermione asked again, pacing back and forth as Ron rolled out their sleeping bags. “And so _fast._ I don’t understand it. Do you think you still have the trace, Harry?”

Harry froze where he was peeking out the curtained windows at the dark square beyond. “The trace?” he asked, feeling suddenly contaminated.

“Nah, he can’t,” Ron answered confidently. “That’s Wizard law.”

“But the Deatheaters have taken over the Ministry, haven’t they? Maybe they found a way to get around it.”

“And when would they have put it back on him, eh? He’s only been seventeen for one day.”

Harry let the heavy curtains drop back into place and stared at them. How _had_ they found him so fast? If he still had the trace, he had to get away from Ron and Hermione at once. If he still had the trace he was a deathtrap.

“Or…” Hermione began, and trailed off. “Harry… didn’t you say your bracelet was a kind of tracker?” Harry turned around to look at her, holding his hands behind his back.

“It is,” he said. “But not like that. It doesn’t tell where I am, it just lets me call for help.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Plus…” he looked back out the window. “No one’s outside. If it was the bracelet, _or_ the trace, they would have come here already, wouldn’t they?”

“I suppose.” Hermione sounded like she’d been hoping it was the bracelet. “Maybe you should take it off, anyway. Just to be safe.”

Harry didn’t turn back around. “No,” he said. 

“But, Harry,” Hermione continued. “Don’t you think it would be better if- ”

“No,” he said again. There was a silence, and then a series of low whispers behind him, and he knew Ron was saying something to her, but he found he didn’t really care what it was. He wasn’t going to take the bracelet off. The Deatheaters could hack it off his dead body as far as he was concerned. He touched the silver and then took his hand away. 

And then, suddenly, his scar began to prickle. 

_Please not Severus,_ he thought. _Not Severus. Anyone but Severus._ He took a deep breath, trying to stave it off, but the pain just increased, like acid was being drizzled onto his forehead. _Not Severus. Not Severus._

“Bathroom,” he muttered, leaving the room as fast as he could without running as the pain started to crescendo. He barely made it. He’d only just bolted the door when an explosion of agony and rage dropped him to the floor. 

It wasn’t Severus, though. It was the big, blonde Deatheater that had cornered them on Tottenham Court Road. Draco was torturing him, and Draco looked bad. He was gaunt, and white, and his lip was split.

***

Harry awoke so early the next morning that it was still dark. He was sandwiched between Ron and Hermione on the living room floor where they’d set up their sleeping bags, and when he opened his eyes, he found that his head was in the crook of Ron’s arm, and Hermione’s hand was on his chest. He blinked at the ceiling, feeling the warmth of their bodies and thinking. 

How could he get out of this? 

He lay still for a while, wondering if they would wake up if he tried to move. He hoped they wouldn’t. Maybe if he was careful enough he could manage it.

Very gingerly, he lifted Hermione’s arm, and laid it to the side, and then began to slide incrementally up out of his sleeping bag. Ron shifted a little, but didn’t wake, and Hermione didn’t even move. He supposed they were exhausted by the flight from the Burrow and all that had happened since. He was exhausted, too, which was probably how he’d managed to sleep at all.

When he’d finally scooted back far enough to stand, he looked down at them sleeping there for a moment, and then around at the silent house. Even being in Number Twelve made him think of Severus, and he hadn’t really been prepared for that, though perhaps he should have been. He’d been too freaked out the night before, but now that he was calm, he needed something to do. Some distraction from his thoughts, so they didn’t sneak up on him. 

He took out his wand and tiptoed out of the living room. And then, on the landing, he whispered, _“Lumos,”_ and started to climb the stairs. He had no set destination in mind, though the last time he’d crept around Grimmauld Place in the dark, he’d been creeping up to Severus’ room. And, he realized, as he ascended still higher, past the bedroom he’d stayed in with Ron, past the library and the bathroom with the tub, that was where he was going now, too. 

Climbing the stairs, he wondered if he was going to cry. Probably not. He didn’t really think he could. If anything could have done it, it would have been the vision of Severus’ torture. But he hadn’t cried after that, either. Not a single tear.

Where was Severus, now? Had he been at the Burrow? He might have been. He might have been there with the other Deatheaters, doing awful things to Ron’s family. Or maybe he’d been at the Ministry, taking it over. Harry wondered. Maybe he could just ask. Just touch his bracelet and think, _Hello, Severus. I miss you. Have you killed any of my friends?_

He snorted mirthlessly and turned the final corner, and was immediately confronted with the door that had, for those few short weeks last summer, meant relief to him. Severus’ bedroom door. There it was. And it was summer again, wasn’t it? This time last year he’d had Severus’ hand over his mouth behind that very door. 

He stood still, looking at the handle, as a brief, but very intense frisson of sense memory shivered through him. 

Severus, hurling him to the bed so hard it knocked the wind out of him. His kiss, the weight of his body, and the growl of his voice _._

_Tell me to stop._

And then it was gone, and Harry was still standing there, frozen, trying to summon the courage to go inside. He didn’t even know what he was afraid of, really, only that he was afraid. 

He reached out for the doorknob and then withdrew again, examining himself. What was he afraid of?

He touched his bracelet and then took his hand away, and suddenly, he knew. 

He was afraid of the silence. 

He was afraid there would be nothing. That the room would be empty, and silent, and cold, like his bracelet was. 

Like the field was. 

Like he was. 

He took a deep breath, grabbed the knob, and pushed the door open. 

The room was, indeed, empty, as had been his fear. He looked around, quite calm, feeling nothing at all. He really was empty too, now, wasn’t he? 

Huh. 

But then something caught his eye. Something small, and yellow, in the very center of the bed, where Severus had once left a bottle of Dreamless Sleep for him. Back a thousand years ago, when they both thought that all Harry needed was sleep. He approached the bed very slowly, his heart pounding, to see what it was. 

It was a little spray of flowers, on a single stem. Golden yellow, and very fresh, as if only just cut. He recognized it, too. It was one of the flowers he’d summoned out of the frozen soil in the Hogwarts grounds, when Severus asked him to clear the snow. They’d picked some, and put them in a glass. Yarrow, Severus called it. Yarrow, and primrose, and daisies, in a glass on his bedside table. Flowers, for Severus, out of the winter earth.

Suddenly, he did not feel empty. Suddenly he felt so full of emotion that he was afraid he might explode. Severus had been there. He had known Harry would come. He had left this for him to find… so that he would know… that Severus was… thinking of him. That Severus… wasn’t really… gone.

There was a sudden pain in his knees.

“Harry? Harry! _HARRY!”_

“I’m… here,” he said slowly. “In here.”

Outside the door came a clatter of footsteps, and Hermione burst inside. “Harry!” she cried. “We woke up and didn’t know where you were!” She turned and shouted over her shoulder. “RON! I’ve found him!”

Ron’s annoyed voice echoed distantly from several floors below. “Good! Tell him from me he’s a git!”

“Harry, don’t just disappear, please, we were terrified! Why did you - ” she stopped, suddenly realizing that Harry was on the floor. “Why are you down there? Are you - are you ok?”

Harry did not look at her. “I found something,” he said, and even to his own ears his voice sounded flat. Hermione cautiously approached.

“What is it?” she asked, like it might be something dangerous. “Is that…”

“It’s just a flower,” he said. “That’s all.” He really wanted to stand up but he didn’t think he could. He felt like his legs were nailed to the floor.

“A flower?” she asked, reaching out to touch it. But then she hesitated, and looked around. “Whose room is this, Harry? Why did you come up here?”

“It’s Severus’ room,” he said blankly, and Hermione jerked her hand back. “I don’t know why I came up, though. I just did.”

“Snape?” she gasped. “But, Harry - it could be cursed, or, or - a portkey or something! Don’t touch it!”

“No,” Harry answered. “It’s just a flower.”

Ron came through the door next, looking very irritated. “You almost gave me a heart at-” he stopped short. “What happened?” Hermione pointed to the center of the bed. 

“Snape left that for Harry to find!” she gasped. 

“Oh, no, did you touch it?” Ron asked, seizing Hermione’s arm and pulling her back like she was about to pick up a venomous snake. It was that reaction that finally gave Harry the strength he needed to stand. He didn’t want either of them to touch it. It was for him, not them, and if they thought it was cursed, they might try to destroy it. “Harry, no!”

Harry was already picking up the flower by the time Ron grabbed the back of his shirt, and it was in his hand when he was jerked backwards. There was a stunned silence as Ron and Hermione both leapt back from him like they expected him to burst into flames.

“It’s just a flower,” he said again. “Look.” He held it out, and they shied back into eachothers arms. “You guys, it’s ok. It’s yarrow. I’ve seen it before. It’s just a plant.”

“But - Harry,” Hermione began, her voice shaking. “Why?”

Harry looked down at the golden blossoms. 

_Because he loves me._

“I dunno,” he said slowly. “Maybe he’s sorry.”

“Sorry?!” Ron burst out. “Are you insane?” 

Harry glared at him, suddenly angry. Lupin had shouted that at him, too. _Insane. Are you INSANE?_ “Big surprise, mate,” he answered coldly. “Mental as ever.” He pushed past them and out the door.

“Harry, wait,” Hermione called. “Hang on, ok? Let’s not fight.” Harry stopped in the hall and turned around to look at them both. 

“What?” he asked. “You already know I’m not going to talk about it.”

She held out her hands. “I know, and it’s ok. Just, don’t run away, alright? Let's go down and get some breakfast. Once we eat we’ll all feel a bit better.” She smiled encouragingly at Ron, who took a deep breath. Harry just glared straight ahead. There was a door in front of his face that he had never noticed before, and he read the little sign on it as Hermione and Ron came over to him. His brain wasn’t really working, though. He had no idea what the sign said. He just didn’t want to look at them, so he kept reading it. 

“What a fussy little sign,” Ron said from his elbow. “Looks like something Percy would put up. Ha. The great prick.” He was obviously trying to take back what he’d just said, and Harry was considering allowing him to when his brain finally absorbed the writing he was staring at. He blinked as his eyes seemed to readjust.

Do Not Enter

Without the Express Permission of 

Regulus Arcturus Black

“Harry…” Ron said slowly. “Did you know Sirius’ little brother’s middle name was Arcturus?”

“No, I didn’t,” Harry answered. “Regulus… Arcturus… Black.” Hermione gasped. “He was a Deatheater. Sirius told me about him. He joined up when he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave - so they killed him. That’s what Sirius said.”

“That fits!” Hermione cried.

***

Harry had to use his trigger point three separate times listening to Kreacher’s tale of being taken to the black lake. Hermione wept, and Ron got very pale, and they both looked at Harry as if to ask if it was true. Harry just nodded, trying with all his might to hold at bay the memory of force-feeding that terrible potion to Dumbledore, and all that had happened after. Dumbledore’s cry - _KILL ME!_ And Harry reassuring him that the next mouthful would. Just one more, Professor, just one more. 

All of it for the fake locket Regulus had left there. Regulus Arcturus Black - R.A.B.

Hearing Kreacher’s story was awful, and tragic, and revolting, and watching the little elf rocking back and forth in hysterical grief, Harry had never before felt so in sympathy with Hermione’s S.P.E.W. campaign. But at least now they had a lead on the real locket, and the excitement surrounding their new information seemed to have driven the gift from Severus quite out of Ron and Hermione’s heads. So, after Kreacher departed to locate the thief Mungus Fletcher, Harry retreated back to the bathroom to look at the flower in private. Sitting on the lid of the toilet, he twirled the cutting of yarrow in his fingers, touched his cuff, and took his hand away, thinking,

_Severus._

_Severus._

_Severus._

***

“What do you think he’s doing in there?” Hermione asked, pacing back and forth. Ron clicked the lights on and off with his deluminator, and she glared at him.

“Maybe he’s doing his meditation,” he offered, letting the little balls of light back out at her expression. He put the deluminator back in his pocket and started fidgeting with his hands, instead.

“Maybe,” Hermione said. “But… I’m worried about him.”

“Me too.”

“That flower was…”

“Creepy and weird?”

“No… I don’t know. I mean, yes, maybe. But, I wonder…” She trailed off, with a far away look in her eyes, and Ron sighed. 

“You can’t go to the library right now, Hermione,” he said. “We haven’t got one.” Hermione just glared at him again and started rummaging in her beaded bag. 

“I know I haven’t got an entire library, Ron. But I do have some things. Aha!” She pulled out one of their old school books and started paging through it’s index. “Yarrow,” she muttered to herself. “Yarrow… yarrow… yarrow!” 

Ron knew better than to interrupt her. So, he just took her spot in the middle of the floor and started pacing. Then, finally, when she’d finished reading, she beckoned to him. 

“Ron…” she said softly. “Come look at this.”

It was the expression on her face that made him come over, though, not her request. She looked sad. No, more than that - she looked almost heartbroken. 

“What?” he asked, taking the book from her hands. It was a copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi._ She just pointed to the page. “I… don’t understand,” he said when he finished reading. “I don’t understand what that means.”

“I think it means that Snape does feel sorry,” she answered slowly. “And I think it means… that he loved Harry. Or… that he still does.”

“What?” Ron asked, disgusted, looking back down at the page. “No way, Hermione. No way. He murdered Dumbledore, and he did it right in front of him. Pretty fucked up thing to do to someone you _love.”_

“Yes, it is,” Hermione allowed. “But still. I think Harry knows some things he isn’t telling us. I think he hasn’t told us very much at all, actually. And he…” she trailed off and looked at her own left arm, frowning.

“He won’t take the bracelet off,” Ron finished for her. “And when you took it off him, he freaked out.”

“Yes,” Hermione said quietly. “I’ve never seen him cry like that before. Not even when Sirius died. I think he must be hiding an awful lot. I think… well…” She paused, touching one finger to the open book. “Ron… You had a meeting with Snape after the fight outside the portrait hole, didn’t you? What did he tell you?” Ron looked away from her and ran one hand through his hair. 

“Oh, well… he told me…” he cleared his throat. “He told me not to tell anyone. But, I guess, that doesn’t matter now, does it?” He laughed a little, even though it wasn’t funny at all. “Now that he’s a murderer. So… he told me that Harry’s muggle family treats him badly. Really badly. That they… hit him, and starve him. And I kind of knew that already, I mean - when Fred, George and I rescued him that one summer - there were bars on the windows. But… Snape told me that, before Hogwarts, they kept him in a cupboard. Like an animal. Like he was worthless.” He took a deep breath. “And he told me that Harry wasn’t sleeping after what happened to Sirius, and that he tried to get Snape to hit him, too. Like his uncle did. Because he wanted someone to hurt him.” Hermione let out a little squeak of distress and pressed her lips together. “Because he thinks he deserves it. And he told me that Harry sometimes tries to hurt himself, too. When he gets too… upset, I guess _._ And that’s what happened at Christmas. That’s why Snape took him away - because no one else knew what was going on, and Harry didn’t _want_ anyone else to know. That’s what he told me. And I - I dunno how much of it was true, now. But… it felt real, at the time. The bastard.”

Hermione’s eyes were shining. “I met with him, too,” she whispered. “I got suspicious. The way they were looking at each other, and I … I confronted him. He told me he was trying to take care of Harry, but that Harry didn’t like it. That it scared him, having someone try to… look after him.” They both looked at the bathroom door. “I think maybe it was the truth. Or… some of it.”

“Well why did he kill Dumbledore, then?” Ron spat. “And what about my brother? Fucking _insanity.”_ Hermione shushed him, and he dropped his voice. “Hermione, come on. This makes no sense! How can Snape have _loved him_ and also done this to him? There’s no way.”

“I think we should ask.”

“He won’t tell us.”

“We can try.”

“He’s going to scream at you if you try to ask, and you know it. He’s going to hit the fucking ceiling- ” But then Ron stopped, looking very confused, and Hermione nodded.

“Yes. Because Snape loved him,” she said. “And he loved Snape.”

  
  



	14. Yarrow

Harry stayed in the bathroom for a long time, thinking practically nothing at all, and when he came out, he felt pretty calm. He hoped he hadn’t been in there long enough to be too suspicious, but when he saw Hermione waiting for him in the hallway, he knew he must have been.

“Hi,” she said nervously. She had a book in her hands - a copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi -_ and a cold little stab of foreboding struck him. She hadn’t forgotten the flower. She’d been _researching it._ “Can I show you something?” she asked, holding the book out in front of her like a shield. “It’s nothing bad. I just - I thought I might… look up that flower. And I found it. Can I show you? I think maybe it's… important.”

“Where’s Ron?” Harry asked.

“Oh, he’s in the living room,” Hermione answered, looking relieved that he wasn’t going to shout at her right away. “He’s playing with the deluminator. Will you come? I promise it’s nothing bad.” Harry hesitated, but then nodded. Hermione and Ron had given up their entire lives to come with him on his quest. He supposed it was the least he could do to look at whatever was in her old schoolbook. So, he followed her into the living room, where Ron was sitting on the very edge of an armchair looking deeply uncomfortable. Hermione opened the book on the coffee table to a marked page, and Ron waved nervously as Harry knelt down with her to see what she’d found. “Here,” she said. “Yarrow.” She pointed at the entry for _Achillea Millefolium,_ and Harry read.

> _Achillea Millefolium, commonly known as Yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae._ _The stem of the common Yarrow is angular and rough, the leaves alternate, clasping the stem at the base, bipinnatifid, the segments very finely cut, giving the leaves a feathery appearance._
> 
> _It flowers from June to September, the blooms, white or gold, being like minute daisies, in flattened, terminal, loose heads, or cymes._

There was an illustration, and he held out the sprig to compare. He had remembered the name correctly. The cutting matched the illustration almost exactly, and looking at it, he could almost hear Severus’ voice: _Achillea Millefolium - yarrow_. He’d been so tired that night, the memory was almost dream-like. But he remembered it, all the same - curled up under Severus’ arm, his eyes closed, in the warmth of his bed, just listening to his voice as he named the flowers Harry’d called forth. _Primrose, poppy, daisy, white clover, yarrow…_

He kept reading.

> _Yarrow is much esteemed as a vulnerary, and its old names of Soldier's Woundwort and Knight's Milfoil testify to this. An ointment, made from its crushed leaves, can be applied to wounds to staunch bleeding, and Milfoil tea is held in much repute in the Orkneys for dispelling melancholy. Gerard tells us it is the same plant with which Achilles treated the wounds of his soldiers, hence the name of the genus, Achillea._
> 
> _Yarrow is one of the finest and most versatile healing plants, and has been respected as such since the time of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Associated with the Chiron, the wise Centaur, Yarrow embodies the archetypes of the wounded warrior and wounded healer, and is carried into war by the well-prepared._
> 
> _Aside from its healing properties, which are great and many, Yarrow is symbolic of everlasting love. Made into a tea and drunk before sleep, or placed in a sachet beneath the head, the cut flowers call forth a vision of the beloved. Placed at the feet of the marriage bed, the stalks ensure seven years of fidelity. Cast at the doorway to the home, the leaves protect against evil spirits and turn them away._

Harry did not speak for a long time as he read. It was hard to get the words into his brain, like they were slippery, or barbed. Once he’d finally finished, he looked silently at the little flower in his hand, his vision sparkling and blurring. It was Hermione who broke the silence, though her voice was very soft.

“I think… maybe… he is sorry,” she said, laying one hand tentatively on Harry’s shoulder. He let it stay there. “He…” she continued, hesitating, as one of his tears fell onto the little illustration. “He loved you, didn’t he? Professor Snape. He loved you.” 

Harry thought about trying to lie, but he was too tired. So, instead of making up some story, he just nodded, staring blankly at the book. That page - a love note, from Severus. Sent in a flower. It was a love note.

Over his head, Hermione and Ron looked at eachother, and Ron gestured at her to keep going. Hermione grimaced at him, and then looked back to the cutting still clutched in Harry’s hand. 

“Harry,” she continued slowly. “If he loved you… why did he do it? Do you know?” Harry’s shoulder under her hand trembled, and she squeezed it. “You can tell me.”

“He - ” Harry started, but stopped abruptly, like he was about to choke. 

“It’s ok,” Hermione said. “I just want to understand. No matter what it is, I won’t be upset. Whatever you say - I love you, and I just want to understand you.”

“He told me,” Harry whispered. “Before he - left.”

“What did he tell you?”

There was a long pause, as Harry seemed to struggle to draw in breath, and Hermione looked at Ron again to see that he was hugging his own arms. 

“He said,” Harry finally began. “He said that he was - going to have to do something. Something horrible. And that it would - tear us - apart.” His voice cracked. “I thought maybe… he was going to have to - kill Malfoy.”

“Malfoy?” Hermione asked, startled, but then hastily softened her voice. If Harry thought she was getting upset, he would definitely stop talking, and he would probably never talk again. This was the only window, right now. Finding that flower had made the window. “But Harry… why?” Harry looked up at her, then, and there was so much more pain in his eyes than she was expecting that she almost leapt back. But she controlled herself - she stayed still - kept her hand on his shoulder - and did not shy away from what she saw. Even though what she saw was that, no matter what Harry said next, he _had_ loved Professor Snape. And he still loved him. And not as a teacher, or a parent, or a protector, or anything like that.

“It’s - complicated,” Harry said. “He and Dumbledore - they both knew what Malfoy was trying to do. And he told me… I mean, I asked him. And he said that Malfoy was supposed to die trying. That’s what he was sent for. To fail. To die. To punish his father for letting us escape from the Department of Mysteries.” Hermione covered her mouth. “But he never said - in all that time - he never said that _he,”_ he broke off. 

Hermione could see him digging his thumb into his wrist, and she knew what that meant. Panic. 

She squeezed his shoulder again. “That he was supposed to do it, instead?”

 _“He never told me,”_ Harry gasped suddenly. _“He never told me. I thought - he-”_

“Loved you?” Suddenly, Harry jerked away from her hand and sprawled backwards onto the floor. “Harry-”

“No - you don’t understand. No one does,” he whispered, scrambling back, his voice strangled. “No one understands what’s happened. To me - to _us-”_

Hermione knelt down on the floor in front of him, and Ron, very wisely, stayed still in his seat. “I want to understand,” she said. “If you’ll just tell me, Harry, I swear, I won’t get upset, or judge you, or anything like that. And you might feel better - if someone knew.” She saw his eyes flick over to Ron and then back to her face.

“That’s what Lupin said. In his letter.” He laughed mirthlessly and then covered his face. “You’re going to hate me, just like he does.”

“Mate,” Ron said from across the room. “You weren’t awake, but I almost decked Lupin in the hospital wing. Tonks had to hold me back.” Harry took his hands away again and looked at him. 

“What?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Ron answered. “After Madam Pomfrey put you to sleep. Lupin tried to get at you but I didn’t let him. I heard you screaming at him not to touch you, so I didn’t let him touch you. I didn’t know why, but… We aren’t him, you know. We’re us. We’re your best friends.”

“I’ve been lying to you,” Harry said, pressed against the legs of one of the side tables, his eyes wide.

“We know,” Hermione answered softly. “It’s ok. But… you can tell us now, Alright? And I think you should. So you don’t… you know…”

“Explode,” Ron finished for her. 

Harry started between the two of them like he was looking at a firing squad.

“Do you want me to back up a little bit?” Hermione asked. 

Harry wished he had never found the yarrow. Wished he had never come to Number Twelve. Wished he had died, that night, with Dumbledore. He could have. He could have just jumped right off the battlements after him, and never ever in his whole life had to feel what he was feeling now. He could have been buried next to Dumbledore at Hogwarts. Asleep, forever, in a white box. 

But he hadn’t. He was still alive, and his friends needed answers, and he didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore. And why should he? Everything he’d been lying for was gone. All he had now was his bracelet, and his mission, and his friends. And his little spray of flowers. He had to tell. And looking at Hermione’s face as she gave him space, he could see that she already knew what he was going to say. She knew, and Ron knew, and they just needed him to be honest. So, he would be. As honest as he could.

He looked at the carpet.

“Ok,” he said slowly. “Ok.” Where could he start? God. “Severus and I - I mean - Professor Snape - ” He stopped. That was already a lie. “Severus. He does love me. He told me, before Christmas. Before I went to your house, Ron. Before I…” He covered his face again, and forced the words out. “Before I took all that Dreamless Sleep. He told me that he loved me. And not like - not like a friend. Or - ” This was impossible. How could he explain to them what had happened? The seismic shift that had torn his whole life in two? They would never be able to understand. Never. “Whatever he told you, afterwards, was a lie. Whatever he said to keep you from asking any more questions. He loves me. He told me, but at first I - didn’t like it. It was - confusing - because -” _I didn’t know how to be loved._ “I didn’t know what he meant by it. But - I figured it out, after a while. That he really did mean it. That he - loved me.” The tears were going to come again, he could feel it. Like finding that single flower had unlocked all of his grief. “And - I love him, too. I do. More than anything. But he - he _left me.”_ There they were. The tears. All of them. Every single fucking tear he hadn’t cried all this time. They’d found him, all at once. _“He left me. He left me. He-”_

Hermione was almost on top of him in her sudden embrace. And then Ron was there, too, hugging them both, like he had been in the hospital wing. The two of them. They didn’t hate him, after all. They still loved him, still wanted to touch him. Still wanted to help, even now. Even though he loved Severus Snape. Was _in love_ with the man that had killed Albus Dumbledore. They didn’t care. They still wanted to comfort him. To be with him. Even though he was a disgraceful, loathsome, disgusting liar. They still loved him. So, he cried. He cried and cried until he was sure that there would be nothing at all left of him. That was what he wanted, really. To be gone. For it to be over. The war. The loss. The grief. 

For it to be done.

***

Hermione made him tea, and he sipped half-heartedly at it as Ron sat awkwardly on the sofa. He was done crying, at least for now, and he had a feeling there would be more questions. And he was right.

“Mate?” Ron began slowly, as Hermione clattered around in the kitchen. “Can I ask you something? I don’t want you to start crying again or anything.” Harry gave him a weak smile.

“I think I’ll need to rehydrate first,” he said. 

“Ok… so. That morning Lupin found you in Snape’s room. You told me you were just sleeping there. That was not true.”

“No, it wasn’t true.”

“And Dumbledore didn’t make a room for you in the dungeons, either.”

“He did make a room for me. Or - Severus did, I guess. But Dumbledore knew about it. I stayed there… a couple times.” He blushed and looked into his tea, wishing Severus was there to put some scotch into it.

“Not very many times, though?”

“Not too many, no.”

There was a long silence. “So, you and Snape… I just want to understand, so don’t flip out, ok? Lupin told me that he was sure Snape was… well. Using you.” He turned red. 

“Lupin has no idea what he’s talking about.” 

“But your… relationship… is it…” Ron trailed off and looked towards the kitchen, and Harry could tell he was wishing that Hermione would come back to rescue him from starting this conversation. Ron wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, but Harry knew what he was asking, anyway. 

“Physical?” Harry finished for him. Ron nodded and turned even more red. He was almost purple, really, and Harry suddenly remembered his explosive reaction to seeing his sister kissing Dean Thomas in the corridors at school. Hogwarts seemed like another world, and so did something so innocent as a couple of Quidditch players snogging in a dark corner. Was Harry’s relationship with Severus physical? He honestly couldn’t think of how it could have been _more_ physical. “Ron,” Harry sighed. “I’m trying really hard not to lie anymore, alright? So, do you really want me to answer that?”

“I… no. I guess I don’t,” he finally finished, giving him a small, embarrassed grin. “Thanks for the out, actually.”

“No problem -” Harry broke off suddenly and Hermione raced back into the room with her hands over her mouth. There was a sound. A metallic clicking. They looked at eachother, frozen in fear, and then Ron stood up and pulled out his wand, and Harry and Hermione followed suit. It was the front door unlocking. And then they heard it. Lupin’s voice.

“Harry?”

***

The first thing Severus did when he arrived at Hogwarts as the new Headmaster was go to his former office. He sprinted up to it, in fact, though he knew that a few extra minutes in either direction wouldn’t make a difference. The castle was quite empty, and would be for weeks still, but the portraits in the halls all turned to look at him as he ran past. He ignored them. Throwing open the door, he raced over to his desk, and almost collapsed in relief.

The little potted cactus was still there, and, luck of luck, it was still alive. Severus sat heavily in his chair and put his head in his hands. Thank God Harry hadn’t given him an african violet. Thank God he’d given him a cactus. Something that thrived on neglect.

***

“I think I broke his jaw. What d’ya reckon?” Ron asked, his hand in a bowl of ice water at the kitchen table. “Felt like I did.”

“Lucky you didn’t break your hand,” Hermione answered, rummaging in her bag. “Oh, here it is.” She pulled out a little bottle and then held out her hands for Ron’s. He offered it out of the ice, and she carefully poured a single drop of dittany onto each of his knuckles. They smoked. 

“Ow,” Ron said, wincing.

“Oh, hush. You’ll be good as new, now.”

“I can’t believe he thought he could come with us,” Harry said, perched on the edge of the kitchen island. Seeing Ron put his fist into Lupin’s face had really raised his spirits. “Leave his pregnant wife and come with _me.”_ He scoffed. “What was he thinking?”

“Dunno,” Ron said. “Probably feels guilty for whatever he did to you. He did say sorry, at first. Kind of.”

“He broke Severus’ nose, during the summer,” Harry added. “That’s how I hurt myself. Getting Lupin off of him.” He kicked his legs a little. “That’s why he was all covered with blood when you saw him, Ron.”

“Wow,” Hermione said.

“How the tables turn,” Ron laughed. “Never thought I’d be punching teachers, but here we are.”

“Lupin didn’t really seem like the punching type, to me,” Hermione added, dabbing gently at Ron’s hand. “You do, though.” Ron flexed the muscles of his free arm like a prize fighter, and she giggled.

“Defender of my honor,” Harry laughed.

“Oi, I’m not going to stand by while some bloke says things like that to my best mate,” Ron scoffed. “He can take his, ‘captor bonding,’ shit and stuff it. I already took sides, and I’m on yours. And if your side has Snape on it, fine.” Hermione let go of his arm and he made a fist and then shook it out. “Plus, he grabbed you.”

“Yeah. He does that.” Harry clasped his hands and looked at the tiled floor. “I pushed him first, though.” 

_‘What makes you think I’d want anything to do with you?’_

_‘Well, you know what I am. I could… provide protection. I could help you. Defend you.’_

_‘I thought I made it clear I don’t want that from you.’_

_‘Harry.’_

_‘What?’_

_‘Didn’t you read my letter?’_

_‘Yeah, I fucking read it. And then we burned it.’_

_‘We?’_

_‘Yeah, Severus and I. We burned it.’_

Lupin hadn’t liked that at all. Not one bit. And at the look on his face, Ron, who had been leaning against the wall watching the exchange, stood up. 

_‘Merlin, Harry, how deep inside your head did he get?’_

_‘Pretty much all the way in there, yeah.’_

_‘I can’t believe Dumbledore let this happen to you.’_

_‘Let what happen to me?’_

_‘Harry, I already know. Why are you still lying? You don’t need to hide. It’s alright. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is.’_

_‘What? WHAT isn’t my fault? Just fucking say it so I can set you straight.’_

_‘Snape took advantage of you. He confused you. He used you.’_

_‘No, he didn’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about.’_

_‘He did. Harry, he’s a grown man, and you’re a boy. He raped you. He raped you!’_

_‘He WHAT?’_

Harry had pushed him. Shoved him right into the wall when he’d said that. And then Remus had grabbed him, and shaken him again, calling him damaged, and crazy, just like at the Burrow, and Ron dragged him off by the back of his robes, and Remus shoved Ron, and then Ron punched him. Right in the face. No Tonks and no Luna to prevent it, that time.

“Seems like he thinks if he shakes you hard enough you’ll go back to normal,” Hermione said. But then she stopped, and turned pink. “I mean - ”

“Nah, it’s ok,” Harry interrupted her. “I’m not normal. But I never have been.” He gave her a small smile. “I’m the Chosen One.”

“The Boy Who Lived - ” Ron said. “To cause fistfights.” 

“You’re like Helen of Troy,” Hermione said, and they both started laughing. Harry just watched them for a long moment, standing there laughing mere minutes after Lupin had shouted such horrible things at him, and suddenly he was overcome with gratitude for them. How they could still want to stay with him, now - it was a miracle. They were _miracles,_ the two of them.

“Thank you,” he said. “For everything, I mean. Both of you.” They stopped laughing. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” Ron looked awkwardly at Hermione, whose eyes were beginning to well up.

“What’s for dinner, do you think?” he asked, and Harry laughed. Ron was so bad at emotions.

***

Severus didn’t think he was quite ready to go into his new office as Headmaster. He didn’t want to see Dumbledore’s portrait, or speak to it. He just wanted to drink. So, he took his little cactus down into the dungeons, and, as he walked, tried not to worry about what would happen when the students and staff refilled the school. He tried not to picture Minerva’s face when she first saw him, or how Draco would behave around him when he arrived from the Manor. He tried not to think of how it would feel to look at the Gryffindor table without Harry sitting at it. He tried not to think about Harry at all, in fact. But there was something he hadn’t anticipated. Or, if he had anticipated it, he hadn’t allowed himself to think of it consciously. And that, of course, was how it was going to feel to open the door to his rooms, and find them so fucking _empty._

Even the sight of the sofa Harry had transfigured froze him in the entryway, the reality of his loss abruptly threatening to overwhelm him as a fine lacework of cracks immediately formed across the floor of his mind. Just seeing the _sofa_ did that. But, he could not be overwhelmed. He had to water the cactus. So, he controlled it.

Very slowly, he walked over to the table. 

_We ate at this table._

He put down the cactus.

_Harry made this cactus._

He withdrew his wand, and produced a little stream of fresh water. Then, he walked over to his cabinet, and pulled out the bottle of scotch he’d bought before the world ended. It was about half-full.

_Severus, can I have a drink?_

He shook his head to clear it, poured four fingers for himself, and drained them. It was too much at once. He coughed, and then poured again.

Harry’s face twisting up in disgust flashed before his eyes.

_Ech. Tastes like petrol._

Severus took the bottle and his glass to the couch, but then, after a moment, he sat on the floor, instead. He rubbed his eyes, and then lit a fire in the hearth, thinking: 

_Harry usually lights the fire._

_Harry usually sits on the floor._

He drank again, and pulled back his sleeve to look at his silver bracelet. He spilled a little bit. His hand was shaking.

***

“I’m going to meditate for a while you guys,” Harry said. Hermione had her nose in _The Tales of Beedle the Bard,_ and Ron was messing with his deluminator again. They had all expected Kreacher to return by then, but he hadn’t, and all three of them were starting to get anxious. 

“Alright,” Hermione answered absently. “Don’t go far.”

“I won’t,” Harry said. “Just into the library.” 

He sat in the middle of the library’s threadbare carpet, and closed his eyes. At first, he had a little trouble focusing. He remembered the last time he’d been in that library very vividly - finding Lupin and Severus fighting savagely and blasting them apart. There was still a black spot on the floor.

He fidgeted, wishing he’d brought the yarrow up with him instead of leaving it downstairs in his mokeskin pouch. He wanted to look at it again. But he couldn’t, so he just looked at his bracelet for a while, instead. He wondered if Severus was looking at his bracelet, too, wherever he was. Maybe he’d taken it off. He might have. He’d promised he wouldn’t, but he’d promised a lot of things.

Harry closed his eyes, and started to count. Five second inhale, eight second exhale. He did about twenty of those, before moving through the progressive relaxation, the body-scan, the awareness of his magic, and the pulling of it in. And then he turned towards the brightest place, the way Severus had taught him, and stepped through.

At first, the wasteland seemed quite the same as always - all grey, and brown, and black. But something was a little different. It took him a while to figure it out. It was his shadow on the ground that made him realize what it was that had changed. He looked up. The sun was out.

***

Severus stayed sitting before the hearth until he was so drunk he could hardly see straight, and that was when he decided it was probably safe to go into the bedroom. He staggered upright, knocking over his empty glass, and made his way carefully across the floor to his door. Then, he steeled himself, and pushed it open. It was quite neat inside - he vaguely remembered tidying up during those interminable hours he’d spent waiting for Harry to return from his errand with the Headmaster - and, for a moment of foolish naiveté, he thought he might be able to tolerate being there. So, he changed into his nightclothes, went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, and then returned to his bed and laid down.

But… there was a smell.

Oh, God - he’d never changed the _sheets._

He leapt out of bed so fast that his foot caught in the blankets and he fell back onto his hands on the floor. Even after almost two months his whole bed smelled like Harry. His shampoo, his skin - it was like he was still _in it._ Severus clutched his head in his hands in a moment of absolute despair as memory after memory burst back out of his protective barriers. An explosion of grief, absolutely shattering all the work he’d done.

Harry, next to him in the dark. Harry, peeking at him from under the blankets. Harry’s hand on his chest. His hair, tickling him. His breath, his sad smile, and his voice - oh _Merlin -_ his _voice._

_Promise me you’ll never leave me._

_Promise that you’ll find me._

_Promise me._

_Promise._

_Severus?_

_Hm?_

_Will you still love me even if I can’t do it?_

_I_ _will love you even if the sky falls._

He’d said that. He had. But it hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t said even _half enough._ He’d wasted so much time. Deliberating. Worrying. He could have loved Harry so much more. What an unforgivable mistake, letting Harry wallow in his pain for so long, when they could have been together. 

Severus scrambled to his feet and back into the bathroom. He didn’t even undress. He just turned on the shower and fell in under the spray. And down there, on the tiles, he finally, finally started to cry. It felt good, in a way. Like draining an infected wound.

He wondered if being able to cry meant he still had a soul. Or… part of one, anyway. For he hadn’t cried like this since Lily died, and it was appropriate, really, to cry for her son. Her precious, beautiful son. Lost, to the wind. Gone. Gone. Gone. 

He was gone.

***

When Severus woke up he was on the sofa, damp, and very disoriented. He sat up, his head pounding, and found the bottle of scotch wedged between his body and the cushions. It was almost empty. He squinted at it.

_Oh, yes. Excellent. Very smart, Severus. Kill yourself with alcohol poisoning. Helpful._

He put the bottle on the floor and got to his feet, and his body immediately alerted him that he was going to be violently sick.

He made it to the bathroom, though. So that was a positive.

Once he was done vomiting, he took another shower, but not in his clothes that time, and when he got out he got dressed, and still felt so horrible that he went to the Hospital Wing to raid the restoratives. He was the Headmaster, now. He could do that, if he wanted to. He drank two, and then a rehydration potion, and a pepper-up. Then, he sat on the edge of one of the empty beds and looked out the window at the bright, deserted grounds. 

It was probably time to explore his new office. Now that his spasm of self-pity had passed, he had work to do. 

  
  



	15. Headmaster Snape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the awesome comments!!

“Hello, Severus. You look quite unwell.”

“Albus,” Severus answered. “You look quite immortal.”

“Well, yes. I’m a portrait.”

Severus sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. He never really liked talking to the portraits of dead people. It was like talking to a memory. Or… a severed personality. Uncanny. And, of course, he had killed this particular dead person, which made it a little worse.

“How is Harry?” Albus asked. “Have you seen him?”

“Yes, I’ve seen him. He fell off that blasted flying motorcycle.”

“Is he alright?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No.”

“Severus.”

“What?” There was a silence, and Severus looked at the other portraits, wondering if he too would be trapped for all eternity on that wall someday. “I haven’t tried to speak to him. I’m afraid he - won’t be… receptive.” Even without looking, he knew exactly what expression would be on Dumbledore’s face, and he did not want to see it. “Although… There was an incident at the Dark Lord’s Headquarters that gave me some hope that he is fighting.” 

He told Dumbledore’s portrait about Dolohov and Rowle being punished, though he did not tell him that Draco had been the one chosen to do it. Albus seemed pleased by that news.

“Very good,” he said. “Phineas? Phineas! PHINEAS!”

“Hmm?” 

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. The portrait of Phineas Nigellus always pretended to be asleep. Always. No matter what bloody time it was.

“Keep an eye out for Harry at Grimmauld Place, will you?”

“Oh, I think he might be here now, actually. There was a ruckus.”

Severus’ heart jumped. “A ruckus?” he asked, looking back around. “What sort of ruckus?”

“There was some shouting. If it is Potter, he is certainly not alone.”

“Who is with him?” Severus asked. “Did he - how did he look?”

“I have not seen him. I only heard the noise.”

“Keep an eye,” Albus repeated. “Now, Severus. I’ve been visiting my portraits at the Ministry and have heard that your appointment as Headmaster will be announced shortly.”

“Yes,” Severus answered tersely. He wanted to hear more about Harry. He wanted Phineas to make a fucking effort and maybe walk around the other portraits in the house… or call out… or _something._ If Harry was at Number Twelve, he wanted to know if he was sleeping. If his friends were with him. If he’d found what Severus had left for him, and, if he had, how he’d reacted.

“And I’ve heard that our dear friends the Carrows will be appointed as Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.”

“Yes.”

“Is Charity dead?”

“She is.”

Albus’ portrait sighed and rubbed his eyes under his half-moon spectacles. “And who else?”

“Who else?”

“Yes. Who else has died?”

Severus pursed his lips. “Scrimgeour,” he said. “Some other ministry officials, though many more remain under the Imperius Curse. And… Alastor Moody. He died during Harry’s extraction. Oh, and quite a few Deatheaters. Moody gave as good as he got.”

“I’m sure he did.”

They spoke for a while about what would need to be done to protect the students when term started again, and how the Carrows could be controlled without raising the ire of the Dark Lord. Severus thought that might be relatively easy. Amycus and Alecto were not the brightest of the Dark Lord’s servants. He was sure they’d been chosen for their cruelty, not their brains. Remembering how Harry had screamed under Amycus’ _cruciatus_ curse out in the grounds, he wondered how he might get some revenge. Maybe he could set Peeves on the two of them. 

Albus inquired about Draco’s fate, if and how he’d been punished for failing, and whether or not he would be returning to school at the start of term.

“I am quite sure his parents will insist on it,” Severus said. “Even though I am the Headmaster.” 

“Even though?”

“Oh, yes. Nowhere is safe for him, now.” He told Albus’ portrait about Draco’s bid to turn the Dark Lord against him, and about Rowle, and the Dark Lord’s new view of the Malfoy family in general, and Draco Malfoy in particular. He told him some of what he’d done to keep Draco safe, though admittedly not the details, and about Lucius’ impotent reaction. Albus frowned.

“How the lost boys fall into your lap, Severus.”

“Draco Malfoy has never been in my _lap,”_ he spat back. 

“Well, when he returns to school he will have a small respite from his fears.”

“If the Potter fan club doesn't make his life a living hell.”

“Do they know?”

“I’m… not sure. I’m not sure whom Harry might have told.” Severus thought about that. He probably hadn’t told anyone. Ron and Hermione, certainly. But not anyone else. He didn’t really… talk to people. “I don’t think he would have spread the story very far. What about the faculty? Minerva? She was fighting that night. She saw us run.”

“I’ve spoken to her.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

Severus stared back at the portrait for a long moment. “Exonerated the boy, but not me, is that it?” he asked coldly. 

“And attenuate your cover? Come now, Severus. The stakes are too high.”

Severus snorted unkindly. He knew the stakes. But then he had a thought. “Albus,” he began. “Now that you’re dead, will you tell me where you took him that night?”

“Who?”

Severus glared at him. “Who do you think?”

Albus tapped his fingers together. His blackened hand, of course, was whole again in his new state as magical artwork. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why? What could it matter, now?”

“It matters, Severus, because if Tom Riddle ever penetrates your defenses, it is critical that he never see what Harry is doing.”

“He will not penetrate my defenses. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through these last few weeks, staying at the Manor. The lies I’ve fed him. He does not even suspect me. He thinks I-” _am a vicious sadist._ “Am perfectly loyal.”

“Still, it is much too important. Oblige me this last secret, will you?”

“As if I have a choice,” Severus hissed. “What did you send him to do, then?”

“That is between Harry and myself.”

_Secrets and lies and secrets and lies. He’s dead and he’s just the same. This must be hell._

Severus stood up suddenly and strode over to the window. Out in the grounds it was the peak of August beauty, and looking at the glorious weather, Severus imagined Harry coming back to school for his seventh year in a few short weeks, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Maybe he would have been Head Boy, in another life. 

“Severus.”

“Yes, Albus?”

“I am sorry.”

“You aren't.” 

***

It only took Severus a few days alone at Hogwarts to realize that he had been using Draco to keep his mind occupied. Protecting him, as a surrogate for Harry. For now that Draco was relatively safe at the Manor, and would soon be coming to school, he did not have that small quest to keep himself busy. And without it, he almost fell apart. For Severus had never in his life had nightmares like these. Every night. Vision after vision of awful things happening to Harry. Harry, falling from the bike, as he had seen, but then crunching to the ground, broken and twisted. Harry, held under the _cruciatus,_ as he had seen, but for _hours_. Harry, caught by Deatheaters, defenseless and afraid. Harry bleeding and wounded. Harry screaming for him. 

Severus dreamt of failing to save him in a thousand different ways. Of betraying him, and leaving him, and breaking his heart. He dreamt of hatred and disgust in Harry’s eyes, and his body cut open, and his blood in a pool on the ground. He had to repair his barriers every morning.

It got so bad so fast that Severus resorted to practicing his hypnosis again in a bid to control it. He took to sitting cross-legged on the floor of his rooms in the middle of the night, counting his breaths and pulling his magic in, and would stand in the familiar darkness of his void for hours at a time. It didn’t seem to help the way it used to, though, and it did not stop the nightmares. 

For a while, Severus could not figure out why. There were only three days left until term began, in fact, when he finally realized what the problem was. 

He’d been dreaming of Harry using his trigger point before walking calmly to his own death, and had woken in such a state of misery that he’d gone to his closet and dug out one of Harry’s old shirts. It was red, and much too big, and it still smelled a little like him. Curled up around it in the darkness, inhaling the smell of his lost lover, he pushed aside his shame and imagined that Harry was in bed beside him - that Harry’d had a nightmare, and needed comfort, and that Severus had told him to go into his magic to feel better. He told himself that was why Harry wasn’t speaking. He was in his magic, not gone. He was just in his magic, where Severus had taught him to go.

And then, in the darkness, he opened his eyes. 

Going into the void wasn’t helping him because he was not the same man he had been, before. He was different. Harry had made him different, and the darkness was not what he needed anymore. He needed something else.

He sat up, and crossed his legs. He slowed his breaths and lowered his heart rate. He pulled in his magic, turned towards the brightest place, and then he imagined a field.

He did not know how accurate it was. He had never seen it before, of course, because it existed only inside of Harry. But it was a field, with a little pond spotted with lily pads. There was a frog, too, of the kind he’d seen sitting, transparent and ghostly, on Harry’s leg, and the sun was out in a brilliant, cloudless sky. Perfect Quidditch conditions. 

He walked around for a while, trying to remember what else Harry had said about it, and what else he’d summoned in his hypnotic state. Trees, and mountains in the distance. A stream. That giant grass he thought was so funny. What else? Butterflies, and bees, and birds. Life. A carpet of clover. Flowers.

Severus started spending quite a lot of time there, trying to make it as accurate as he could. Trying to turn it into a place that Harry might like to visit - a place he might like to stay. Their field, as he’d said that first time. Theirs.

He knew, of course, as he wiled away his sleepless nights inside his magic, that what he was doing was not healthy in the long run. He knew that fantasizing of meeting Harry in an imaginary landscape that existed only in his own mind was on the path to madness - but it didn’t matter. There was no long run. He only needed to make it to the end of the war, and then he could lose his mind all he wanted. He could jump right off a bridge, if that was what struck his fancy.

It did help, though, after a fashion. Even as his bracelet stayed silent to the start of term, and he read in the paper that Harry Potter had been branded Undesirable Number One, and was wanted for questioning about Albus’ death. It helped as the school filled up around him, and the other Professors returned, and he had to suffer their lethal stares. It helped when Draco appeared, looking pitifully up at him from the Slytherin table, trying to get his attention. It helped when Phineas Nigellus announced that he was now in a handbag, and that surely meant that Harry and his friends had fled Grimmauld Place, yet Harry still did not speak. As his bracelet hung like a dead thing around his wrist, he just told himself that he could go to the field, soon, and that Harry might be there. Or, if he wasn’t - which Severus really did know he wouldn't be - then maybe Harry was inside his own field, wherever he was. That he was alive, and sowing chaos, as was his great talent. Severus heard whispers from the Deatheaters stationed at the Ministry that three _someones_ had broken in, stolen Moody’s eye, and released a bunch of muggleborns. Three someones, recklessly, fearlessly, precipitating chaos in the heart of the Ministry.

Severus loved him.

At Hogwarts, though, there were a few who had taken up the Harry Potter Mantle of Discord, too. Harry’s friends - the ones he’d left behind - did not like that Severus was the Headmaster. They did not like it at all. The Weasley and Lovegood girls, and Longbotton, too, were particularly stalwart in their attempts to lead the school in an uprising against Severus and the Carrows. He almost admired them for it. They were doing an excellent job being excruciatingly annoying. They even tried to steal the decoy Sword of Gryffindor, though what they could have been planning on doing with it, Severus had no idea.

***

The author of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ was not kidding when she wrote that yarrow could call forth a “vision of the beloved.” Harry slept with the cutting under his pillow every night, and every night it called forth a vision. Well, a dream, anyway. It was nice. He would say goodnight to Ron and Hermione, and count his twenty breaths, and when he’d fall asleep, he would have a dream about Severus. They usually weren’t very long, or complicated, or weird or anything. Just a dream of sitting on the floor, reading a book, with his back resting against Severus’ legs. Or… having breakfast at his table. Looking at him sleeping, or watching him teach. Things like that. Simple. 

He had some sex dreams, too, of course, but not very often. And those ones invariably turned into nightmares so violent and horrifying that Harry would wake up drenched in cold sweat. Awful things. Severus running him through with the sword of Gryffindor, staking him to the bed, and then fucking him in the blood. Nagini crushing him to death with Severus’ cock in his mouth. Voldemort’s fingers in Severus’ brain, controlling him like a puppet, making him _do things._ They were terrible. Sometimes he screamed and thrashed and woke the others. Once, in the morning, he had blood in his mouth, and realized he’d been biting at his own knuckles in his sleep. Hermione put dittany on it, and did not ask him any questions.

It took him a few weeks to put it together that he only had _those_ dreams when he was wearing the Horcrux. So, he stopped sleeping with the yarrow when he had it on. Without the yarrow, the locket still gave him awful nightmares, but at least they weren’t awful _sex nightmares._ It really freaked him out to think that the fragment of Voldemort’s soul was somehow doing that to him. What if the soul shard could see what he was dreaming? Creepy.

Harry shuddered and turned onto his stomach, and then back onto his back as he felt the unnaturally cold pressure of the Horcrux sandwiched between his chest and the bunk bed. He could hear Ron’s gentle snoring through the pattering of the rain on the canvas of their tent. It had been raining for a while. Days and days. He figured it must be near the end of October, though he didn’t know for sure, and they were still no closer to finding a way to destroy the damn locket. He wondered if Ron and Hermione were getting impatient with him. He was getting impatient with himself. What had he been thinking, dragging his friends with him on this insane adventure? They were hardly even able to feed themselves. Just three idiot teenagers in a tent in the rain, that’s all they were. 

He sighed. That was the locket talking, he knew. He’d be able to take it off in a few hours, and then his brain would go back to normal. It was Ron’s turn to wear it next, though, which never went well. Ron was irritable and short when he had it on, and extremely rude. He’d complain about being _bored_ as if they weren’t fleeing for their lives, and he never had any new ideas. He’d just shoot down all of Harry’s and Hermione’s, and complain about being hungry, and sulk. Hermione did ok with the locket, though. When she had it on, she just got quiet and withdrew into _Beedle the Bard._

Laying there, listening to the rain, Harry wondered if he acted weird when he had the locket on, too. He hoped not. When he was wearing it he mostly just felt sad, like no time at all had passed since that terrible night at Hogwarts. Sad, and angry, too, a lot of the time. At Dumbledore, and the world, and at Severus, of course. When he had it on, he wanted to send Severus things like, _what the fuck is wrong with you?_ And _think of all the time we could have had together, you stupid prick._ And _I hope your heart is broken like mine is._ And _I hate you._

But he didn’t say any of that, because he knew he didn’t really mean it. What he really wanted to do was ask if Severus was ok, but he didn’t do that, either. The bracelet had become a kind of talisman to him. It was stupid, he knew, but it was like he thought that as long as he never used it, Severus had no opportunity to be silent. Severus could never reject him if he didn’t try to speak. Because his worst fear - worse by far than his worries about never finding the other Horcruxes - was that Severus really had left him. That he’d taken off his bracelet and forgotten all about him. That he’d… taken Malfoy with him, instead.

 _That’s the locket, you dolt,_ Harry thought, trying to push back the sudden burst of pathetic misery that turned his whole body cold. He was absolutely sure that the locket was responsible for that idea. It had never even occurred to him before he first put it on. _Severus gave you the flower. He isn’t gone, and he didn’t take Malfoy with him. He took Malfoy to Voldemort, and that is not the same thing._

But… he might have. He might have chosen Draco, instead. Draco was a pure-blood. He was rich, and influential, and better looking than Harry was. He was blonde, and undamaged, and… well… pretty. Severus might have been with Draco all summer, while Harry was alone. And now that school had started, maybe Severus was at Hogwarts, just living his life as if he’d never loved Harry at all. Just used him, like Lupin said, and then moved on. To someone better.

_No, that’s bullshit and you know it. When the locket’s off you won’t think that anymore. Severus loves you, and he’s probably just waiting for you to say something first. Malfoy is nobody, and he certainly isn’t better than you. At least - not to Severus._

But, did he know that? Severus hadn’t spoken to him, either, all this time. Not a single word. The only information he ever got about Hogwarts was through the snide portrait of Phineas Nigellus that Hermione had in her handbag, and from a few stolen newspapers. Taking that portrait had been a stroke of genius, really. Without it, they would have had no link to the Wizarding World at all. 

Because Severus did not speak. 

Because Severus was gone.

With Malfoy.

Harry scratched at his chest, under the weird cold spot the locket always left on him. He was almost done with his shift wearing it, and things were always the worst at the end. It was like the Horcrux had a tiny dementor inside it, slowly sucking out all of his hope, and putting awful thoughts into his head. Thoughts about failure, and death, and Dumbledore’s lies, and about Draco in Severus’ bed. It made him feel so hopeless, in fact, that he couldn’t cast a Patronus while he was wearing it. He couldn’t even produce a whiff of silver smoke. It just wouldn’t come. He could still go into his magic, though, and he did it right then, in a bid to stave off the despair he could feel threatening to swamp him. 

Over the weeks since they’d left Grimmauld Place, the wasteland had gradually changed. It was a little less like a wasteland, now, and more like a high desert. The ash and stone had given way in a few places to a sandy sort of soil, and Harry started trying to repopulate it with the kinds of plants he thought might live in a place like that. In the cracks between stone outcroppings, he called forth a few types of cacti and scrub brush that he’d found in _Herbs and Fungi,_ and some low-growing creepers that looked nasty enough to tolerate the arid landscape. It wasn’t really as fun as the field had been, but he hoped that maybe someday he’d figure out how to get back there. 

Severus had told him he could make the inside of his magic anything he wanted, but that didn’t really seem to be how it worked. That, or maybe he really did just want sand and thorns. He thought Severus might like it there, at least. It wasn’t too hot or anything. Just flat, and open, and quiet. 

***

“Oi!” Amycus bellowed, bursting into the Headmaster’s office. “No one warned me taking this bleeding job would involve getting pelted with dung bombs fifty times a day!” 

“Good evening,” Severus said, annoyed. He was waiting for Phineas to come back from his other portrait, and he didn’t want filthy Amycus Carrow to get in the way.

“You need to control that poltergeist!” Severus did not reply. He just folded his hands on his desk and raised his eyebrows, and Amycus visibly deflated. Severus was not to be shouted at, which he knew very well. “I mean… apologies, Headmaster.” 

“You and your sister are just going through a typical hazing,” Severus said evenly. “Peeves doesn’t know or care that you are not normal Professors. And no one can control him. Not even me. Now, if there is nothing else, you might take a shower before dinner.” Amycus turned red. “If you don’t mind.”

Once the door had swung shut behind him and his smell, Albus’ portrait spoke. 

“Hazing?” he asked.

“He tried to torture Harry.” 

“Severus!” Phineas Nigellus cried, suddenly appearing in his frame. He was blindfolded, as usual, and he gestured impatiently at it. “If you please!” Severus waived his wand and vanished it, and Phineas seized the edge of his frame. “There’s been a rift!”

“A rift?” Severus asked, alarmed. “What did you hear?”

“Well, I’d just told them about the attempt on the sword, and the Weasley boy and Potter started shouting at each other! I think he’s left!”

“Who?” Severus demanded. “Who’s left? Harry?”

“No, the Weasley! He was screaming that Potter doesn’t care about his family. Something about his brother’s ear, and his sister, and… you.”

Severus grimaced. That was whose ear he cursed off, then. One of the brothers. He’d been hoping it was Mundungus Fletcher. “What about the girl?”

“The mudblood?” Phineas hissed. Severus pointed his wand at him.

“Call her that again and I’ll make her addition permanent.” 

Immediately, Phineas shrank back towards the edge of his background and raised his hands. “Granger, then. Granger. She remains, as far as I can tell.”

Good. At least Harry wasn’t alone. Severus looked at Albus. “Where will he go, do you think?”

“Ronald? I am not sure,” Albus answered. “But he will find his way back. And when he does, it will be time to place the sword.” 

Severus rolled his eyes in exasperation. The fucking _sword_ was such a diva _._ “Tell me again - Why can’t I just give it to him?”

***

As Harry listened to Hermione weeping quietly in her bunk, he was uncomfortably aware of how she must have felt acting as witness to his own despair those first few weeks after Severus left. This must be just what he’d sounded like, too. Heartbroken. Empty. Abandoned.

He lay still, looking at the canvas ceiling, trying to control his anger, but Ron’s words just kept circling around his brain.

_“We thought you knew what you were doing. We thought you had a real plan! But you don’t, do you? All you care about is your Deatheater boyfriend. Fucking Snape, honestly? He cut off my brother’s ear. And you heard what Phineas said - he sent my sister into the forbidden forest! But you don’t care about them, you just care about him!”_

Harry turned over and put his head under his pillow. He cared about the Weasleys. He cared about George’s ear, and about Ginny, and all the others. But Severus had hit George by mistake, he was sure, and he honestly could not think of a more lenient detention for Ginny than a trip to the forbidden forest with Hagrid. There were Deatheaters at Hogwarts. Two of the ones that had been there when Dumbledore died, if he remembered right. Sending Ginny, Luna, and Neville to Hagrid for detention had been _saving them._ But Ron wouldn’t listen. He had fucking rocks in his brain, and now Hermione was crying like she’d had her heart cut out. And she had, he supposed. The two of them, alone together in their cold, damp tent. No matter that Ron had defended him against Lupin. No matter that the three of them had been together for so long. Ron had left. Just like Dumbledore, and just like Severus. 

Laying there, listening to her cry, he tried not to think that maybe Ron was right. He didn’t know what he was doing. He had no plan, and Dumbledore had told him almost nothing. Dumbledore, who must have known he was going to die, still had not told Harry anything at all, really. And he’d dragged his friends with him on this fool's errand. Ron was right to leave. He was. Harry was an idiot, and he’d probably get Hermione killed, if she didn’t leave him, too. Just like all the other people he’d gotten killed.

Staring into the dark, Harry felt that he’d give absolutely anything to have Severus’ hands on him. To have Severus there, with him, to make him stop thinking. He closed his eyes, wanting so much, so desperately, that he was almost dizzy. Wanting to flee back into Severus’ arms. Wanting to stay isolated forever. Wanting to give up. To lay down and die. Wanting Severus to look at him - to see him - to tell him if what he was doing was wrong. Wanting Severus to touch him. To hurt him. To punish him for his incompetence. 

But no, that was a lie. He didn’t want Severus’ cruelty. He wanted his love. And, knowing that, he knew that he was not going to sleep.


	16. Need and Valor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. the next chapter is called "Contact" so just hang in there :P

After Ron’s departure, Harry and Hermione spent most of their evenings in an oppressive silence. It felt like there was nothing at all that could lift it, for Harry had resolved never to speak Ron’s name again, and Hermione seemed unable to think of anything else. She did try to put a brave face on for him after the first few days, but Harry was not convinced. He could hear her crying at night, while he counted his breaths, even after weeks and weeks had passed. It made him feel terribly hollow to hear it. So much loss, and they’d still made no progress at all.

So, as the wet, fall weather began to grow steadily colder, they passed their time separately, with the great gulf of Ron’s absence between them. She, reading _Beedle the Bard_ over and over, or staring blankly into the middle distance, and Harry, meditating silently, or spinning his cuff around his wrist, or reading his mother’s letters, or watching the Marauder’s Map. 

He first started bringing out the map to satisfy a vindictive desire to see Ron’s dot appear in the school, proving that he’d returned to the comfortable castle, protected by his status as pureblood. But Ron did not appear, and, after a while, Harry found himself activating the map just to look at Severus’ name. Staring at it, as it moved alone between the Headmaster’s office and the dungeons, he wondered whether the intensity of his gaze might somehow break into Severus’ sleep, or raise the hairs on the back of his neck. He wondered if Severus was thinking of him, and he wondered if he should try to speak. But he didn’t speak. For the more time that passed, the more impossible it seemed that he would ever have the courage to break the silence. It was almost like a superstition - his conviction that he must not speak first. For, if he did, surely Severus would not answer. And then he really would be alone. Forever. 

So, he touched his bracelet, and looked at Severus’ dot, and slept with the yarrow under his pillow, and kept trying to think of some way to destroy the locket that he still had to wear every other day. The locket that sucked out all of his remaining hope - that deprived him even of the small comfort of dreaming of sitting at Severus’ feet, and whispered to him in the dead of night that Severus had chosen Draco - that Draco was better - smarter - more desirable - that no one would ever want someone like Harry when they could have Draco Malfoy, instead. No matter that he never once saw Draco’s dot anywhere near Severus’ rooms. The fear persisted, incubating nastily in the space the Horcrux occupied over his heart.

He had to figure out a way to destroy it. And then he had to find the next Horcrux, and the next, and then kill Nagini, and then Voldemort, and then he could go home. 

If his home was still there, that was.

If, at the end, his home was still alive.

And if his home still wanted him.

***

Halloween and Guy Fawkes Day passed, and still, not a word from Harry. Severus was beginning to think that he really had taken the bracelet off. For he could not imagine why else he might stay silent for so long. The only explanation was that Harry must hate him. Harry must think that everything they’d shared was a lie. Or, perhaps, Harry had simply come to his senses at long last. Harry had realized that Severus was too old, and too ugly, and too scarred, and damaged, and despicable. Harry had woken back up, that was all. Woken up out of their little dream-world. That must be it. Wherever Harry was, he hated Severus, as he should have all along, and he’d gotten rid of the bracelet, and burned the yarrow. Or, at the very least, he must not have understood what Severus meant by it.

Those were the thoughts that plagued Severus Snape through the weeks and weeks that slipped by with no word. But his conviction that Harry despised him did not change anything. Severus still loved him, and missed him terribly, and worried about him every waking moment. So, to satisfy his urge to protect Harry, and to act on his behalf, he turned his attention to shielding Harry’s housemates and friends from the wrath of the Carrows, in whatever small ways he could manage. 

For the Carrows were chosen for their cruelty, as he had suspected. Alecto, appointed as Muggle Studies Professor, bent herself to teaching every pupil that Muggles were no better than beasts. That they were stupid, and ugly, and needed to be brought to heel. Severus was called many times to approve her sadistic detentions, doled out to any student with the courage to question her assertions. And Amycus, as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, seemed to enjoy pressuring and coercing students as young as eleven into casting the _cruciatus_ on eachother.

So, Severus occupied himself with convincing the Carrows that Hagrid gave the most brutal punishments, and that there was no more terrible fate than being sent into the Forbidden Forest with him. He supplied Peeves with a wide selection of tools and the freedom to harass and interfere with Amycus and Alecto, which Peeves quite enjoyed. The little poltergeist kept his secret well, and reported to the Headmaster’s office regularly with a jaunty salute, and Severus gave him inkwells, and fireworks, and wartcap powder, and dungbombs, and pretty much everything that had been confiscated from the student body. He even collected a number of copies of _The Monster Book of Monsters_ for him, which he had a wonderful time placing inside the Carrows’ rooms. In their beds and their toilets, apparently. 

Pursuing those petty revenges took his mind off of Harry’s silence for short stretches, which was a relief. But that did not mean there weren’t bad days. There were terrible days. Awful ones. There were days when Severus was struck with such a forceful longing for his lost lover that it felt like a stone in his belly. There were days when he could hardly tolerate the hateful gazes of the other teachers, and days when he was overcome with shame to see Slytherin house, formerly his pride and joy, whole and unaffected while all the others were torn apart by the muggle-born bans. There were days when he was so enraged at Albus that he was tempted to tear his portrait off the wall and burn it, and days he despised himself so much for what he’d done that no amount of time spent inside his magic could purge the hate. There were days when Phineas Nigellus brought him news of Harry and Hermione going hungry, or of placing their tent somewhere with a howling wind so loud and so cold that he could not believe they had chosen it - wherever _it_ was - as their shelter. And then, when it was nearly Christmas, there was a very bad day, indeed. 

Severus was responding to a report of yet another disturbance in Defense Against the Dark Arts when he walked by Slughorn’s Potions classroom. The door was ajar, and as he passed, worrying about what sort of punishment the Carrows had dreamed up, he felt his heart suddenly seize in his chest. For a moment he was not sure why - only that there was a sharp pain, and a single thought in his head, so loud it made his ears ring. 

_HARRY IS HERE._

He stopped still in the corridor, trying to identify the source of his distress. For a moment, he could hardly even orient himself through the sudden haze of grief filling his mind. But then, he realized. It was… a smell. A fragrance, on the air. Wildflowers, and wet ground. The burnt ozone of spent sparks. Soap, and sandalwood, and red wine, and skin. _His_ skin, and _his_ hair, and _his_ flowers.

So sure was he in that moment that Harry had just passed, that he very nearly burst into the classroom. But then his rational mind caught up with him, and, in the end, he did not even need to look inside to know what had happened to him. They were brewing _Amortentia_ in there, surely, and he’d simply been unlucky enough to walk through the fumes. That knowledge did not stop him from lingering outside the door, though, and only when students began to flood out at the end of the period did he flee.

He’d been trying very hard not to drink too much since that first night back in the castle, but he drank that day. He drank a lot, and stayed up all night burrowing into his reservoir of hidden memories, torturing himself with images of Harry, his lover. In his bed, and his shower, and on the sofa, and before the fire. The taste of his skin, and the touch of his hands, and his voice forming the words - _make love to me._

He regretted his weakness terribly in the morning, and had to spend hours patching up the damage he’d wrought on his own mental defenses. Once he was done, though, he emptied his bottle of whisky into the sink, and resolved not to lose control again. He was acting useless. Shameful. He had to stay focused on the next step. And the next step was bringing the sword of Gryffindor to Harry, under conditions of true need and valor. 

Need and valor. Lord in heaven. As if Harry didn’t have enough to deal with, with the snatchers, and the vicious articles in every reputable paper, and a veritable fortune being offered for his scalp. And Severus had to make him do something dangerous, just so the sword would stay once he captured it? Ridiculous. 

But Albus’ infuriating portrait was adamant - If Severus just left the sword for Harry to find, it would vanish in short order. And Harry needed it, or so his dead taskmaster insisted, though he refused to say why. 

Who knew _Gryffindors_ were so fucking _secretive._

“Wait for Ronald to return, then move to place the sword,” Albus said.

“But how? How will I know?” Severus countered. “I have no way of tracking him. He left Harry. Abandoned him! How will I know if he ever sees fit to return?” 

Albus chuckled in his frame like Severus was a small child questioning his parents. “Look in my desk,” he said. “Lower left drawer. There is a cigarette lighter in there.”

“Do you smoke?” Severus asked, irritated. “Nasty habit. Bad for your health.”

“I have been known to enjoy a pipe, occasionally,” Albus said airily. “But that is not what it’s for.” 

Severus rummaged in the drawer until he found the little silver case. But it wasn’t a lighter. He’d seen it before. “Your deluminator?” he asked, nonplussed. 

“One of them, yes.” Albus smiled serenely at him, adjusted his glasses, and began to spin him a tale. It was the tale of a prodigal son, returned just in the nic of time to rescue his best friend from mortal peril. A tale of need and valor, danger and loyalty - of true friendship and love. It was long, and Severus was very annoyed.

“You are the most unforgivably manipulative person I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” he said. “How in Merlin’s name did you know he would leave?”

Albus shrugged. “I was an uncommonly talented wizard,” he said. “Watch the deluminator. When he rejoins his friends, it will alert you.”

“But how?” 

“Oh, you will hear his name, in the voice of whomever spoke it.”

Severus looked at the ceiling. “I get the impression that, if you’d cared to, you could have made this a lot easier on all of us.”

“A quest is a quest, Severus.”

“A _quest.”_

It was hard not to drink.

***

Severus awoke only just past midnight Christmas morning to the burning of his Dark Mark. He’d been dreaming of Harry, imprisoned in Malfoy Manor, tortured at wandpoint by Draco, and for a moment when he sat up he had no idea where he was. But there was nothing quite like the pain of the Mark charring into life under one’s skin to spur one into action, and in short order he was dressed and striding out into the grounds to apparate.

When he appeared at Headquarters, it became clear to him very quickly that he alone had been summoned, and that the Dark Lord was incandescently angry. So angry, in fact, that for a moment Severus was quite sure he’d been discovered and was about to be executed. But, no. He wasn’t going to be harmed at all. The Dark Lord just wanted his _comfort._

“SHOW ME!” Voldemort shrieked, striding back and forth in agitation. “I want to see his pain! Show me how weak he is! Show me!”

“As you wish, my Lord,” Severus answered calmly, very glad he’d taken the time to keep up his regular repairs at school. His cover was well-placed, as it had been since the summer, and the Dark Lord spent a long time watching and re-watching various scenes of Harry screaming and begging for mercy. 

He did not tell Severus why he wanted to see it. He did not say what had infuriated him. But Severus thought he knew. There was only one thing that made the Dark Lord so incredibly angry, and that was Harry Potter slipping through his fingers. Again.

Harry must have been within his grasp, and just barely managed to escape.

Severus hoped he wasn’t hurt.

He hoped Hermione wasn’t dead.

***

Hermione wasn’t dead, but Harry had been hurt. And badly. Nagini had crushed him, and bitten him, and the locket had burned him, and his face and body were cut and bruised, and he had never before felt pain in his scar like that. It took him a while to wake up - hours - or so Hermione said. 

“We got away?” he asked with a start, staring around their tent. The last thing he remembered was seeing through Voldemort’s eyes. He’d been centimeters - _millimeters_ \- away from catching them, and had screamed so terribly - or - had that been his mother’s scream? He shook his head hard to clear it, and the room spun, and Hermione steadied him, a damp cloth still clutched in her hand.

“Yes,” she said. “We did. I had to use a hover charm to get you into your bunk, though. I couldn’t lift you. You’ve been… Well, you haven’t been quite…” She trailed off, and Harry saw that there were purple shadows under her eyes, stark in her pale, worried face. “You’ve been ill. Quite ill.”

Harry rubbed his eyes. They should never have gone to Godric’s Hollow. It had been a trap, just like Hermione said it would be. God, what a mistake. Hermione could have been killed so easily - and Harry. Nagini was trying to _hold him,_ to keep him still for Voldemort to capture _._ If only they’d been able to kill her. She was a Horcrux, and she’d been _right there._ If he’d just managed to kill her, it would have all been worth it. But he hadn’t. He’d failed. Again.

Fucking _failure._

Feeling sick, he sat up and threw back the covers, ignoring the little lights that popped behind his eyes at the sudden movement. 

“Harry, no. I’m sure you need to rest!”

“I’m fine,” he said shortly. He was fine. He didn’t need to rest. God. Nagini was _right there._ Bathilda Bagshot had been speaking _parseltongue_ and he was too stupid to realize it. “You’re the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. I’ll keep watch for a while while you rest. Where’s my wand?” Hermione did not answer immediately, and he looked back around to see that she had tears in her eyes. His stomach turned over. “Hermione… Where’s my wand?”

The two broken halves of his wand felt like the corpse of a small, precious animal, held in his hands. His wand, the one that had chosen him in Ollivander’s shop all those years ago, the one he’d had since he was eleven, the protection of the twin cores that had saved him so many times - Gone. And Ollivander was captured, and Gregorovitch was dead, and he couldn’t do his wandless magic anymore, because Severus was gone, too. His injuries were nothing. He would heal. This, though, was a critical blow.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Hermione squeaked. “I’m so sorry. It was my spell. I used a blasting charm to get the snake off of you. And it - I - I’m so sorry.” She broke off. “But - can’t you just… use your hands?”

Harry did not look up at her as he answered. 

“No,” he said. 

He did not elaborate, and she did not ask him to, so he took her wand with him for that night’s watch and let her rest. She needed to rest.

In the doorway to the tent, he touched his cuff and then took his hand away. 

***

Severus sent for Draco before leaving the Manor, even though he didn’t really want to. What he wanted to do was help Harry, and, barring that, he rather wanted to apparate directly back to the castle and get hammered. But he’d resolved not to do that anymore, and Harry was out of reach, so he’d just have to help Draco, instead. He’d been alone at the Manor for almost a week, after all, and Severus had not checked in on him. Hadn’t spoken to him at all since he’d left Headquarters, in fact. So, in the parlour of Malfoy Manor he located Pettigrew and sent him to fetch his _plaything_ , and when Draco appeared in his nightclothes, Severus seized him by the hair and dragged him upstairs. He took care to make a bit of a fuss so people would notice. Inside his old room, he slammed the door, and cast his silencing charms.

“Ow,” Draco said, rubbing his scalp. “Nice to see you too, Professor.”

“Draco,” Severus answered, crossing his arms. “Any trouble?” 

“Not yet. A few people have been looking at me, but I…” he paused. “I did a few things to myself before I came home to make it seem like you still… care.”

Smart of Draco to take it upon himself. He must have realized Severus was not interested in coddling him at school. Or giving him any special… privileges. Or seeing him, or speaking to him at all.

“Oh? And what did you do?”

“Just the usual.” He held up his wrists to show a pair of yellowed bruises. “Little harder by myself, but I managed alright. I was afraid you weren’t going to help me anymore, when you wouldn’t look at me, and… Rowle definitely hasn’t forgotten about me. I see him… kind of… watching me. Greyback, too, when he’s here. I think they’re waiting for you to lose rank. Or interest.” He paused, and rubbed his wrists. “You won’t lose rank, right?”

“No. Nor shall I lose interest. My apologies for not renewing my claim on you before the Holidays. I’ve been busy. Shall we?” Severus gestured to his clothes, and Draco pulled his shirt over his head and presented his back. His scars were a little lighter after so many months, Severus noticed. He’d have to update his memories to match, just in case. If Greyback was looking at him, this was more important than ever. Being given to Greyback was like being sent to death row. He liked to eat his toys, after he mutilated them.

“You should hit me, too,” Draco said softly, his gaze fixed on the wall. “You looked really angry when I came down. I think you’d… hurt me pretty bad. If this was real. And - seems like the worse I look, the more they respect you.”

Draco was right. He was angry, and he was afraid, and Harry was probably wounded, wherever he was, and Severus was at Malfoy Manor, with _Draco,_ because there wasn’t anything else he could do. And Draco was right that the others respected him more for this despicable nonsense. It made them think he was _virile_ , like doing this somehow made him more of a man. His conquest of Potter was legendary, too. There were whispers, and sidelong glances, and envious gazes, like he’d achieved something great in subjugating two lovely young boys. It was grotesque.

“I would. If this was real.” He dug his nails into Draco’s pale shoulder blade and dragged them down, and Draco tensed and pressed his lips together, but didn’t make a sound. That was good. Sometimes he let out a little squeak of pain that Severus didn’t like. It reminded him of… things. “And if they want to see how brutal I can be all they have to do is lay a finger on you.”

Severus raised his hand and did it again, on the other side, higher, and then a third time, diagonally, with a crooked break in the middle, like he’d been overcome with passion. Draco did let out a noise, then, but Severus ignored it. Shut it right out of his mind.

“My father wants to kill you.” 

“I know he does. Turn.” Draco turned around. “Close your eyes.” He did.

“But that means it's working, right?”

“Yes,” Severus said. “Is anyone else looking at you, or just those two?”

“It’s not just those two,” Draco answered, and scrunched up his face a little. “Hard,” he said. “Don’t hold back.”

Severus hit him hard. Hard enough to knock him sideways onto the bed, where he lay for a moment, panting and dazed. But he got back to his feet, as he always did, and when he wiped the blood off his mouth, he smeared it a little between his fingers like paint.

“Thanks,” he said. Severus did not answer. He just watched another drop of blood well up out of Draco’s mouth and spill over, and thought nothing at all. “Professor Snape?”

“Yes?”

“Will I…?” He swallowed, catching the drop of blood before it could trickle down his chin. “I won’t ever - I mean. This won’t be over until the war is over, will it?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” Severus answered, and Draco looked back at him, absolutely expressionless. 

“And even then, only if - only if I die. Or… we lose.”

Severus met his eyes, and a dark curtain immediately swept down across Draco’s thoughts. “You’ll need more than that if you’re thinking such things, Draco,” he said. “Crush that thought. Bury it.”

“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry.”

“Bury it,” he repeated, and looked at the clock on the wall. “You have twenty minutes. Bury it, and never think it again. Never. Do you understand me?”

Severus took a long shower when he returned to Hogwarts, and under the spray, he wondered if there was any way to save any of them at all. Harry, and Granger, and the Weasleys. Draco, and Lovegood, and Longbottom, and all the muggleborns and half-bloods and blood-traitors and the purebloods groomed by their parents to insist on magical purity across the nation. What would become of them? 

He thought about his own generation, decimated by the first war. How young they all had been. Lily, and Regulus, and Alice, and all the others. Dead, and mad, and maimed, and imprisoned. Both sides of the war, populated by children. 

He thought about Draco’s doubts, and how long it would take the Dark Lord to feel them. If he did, when he did, no amount of Severus’ ownership would be enough to save him. He’d probably be handed right to Greyback to be violated and ripped apart, unless the war ended. Unless Harry succeeded in dying for them all. Unless Severus succeeded in bringing the only person he wanted to save, right to his own grave. If Severus wasn’t strong enough to do that, there would be whole new cemeteries built all over the country. Graves for the halfbloods and purebloods, and pits filled with the bodies of the _mudbloods_ and sprinkled with lye _._

He stared blankly at the tiles. 

He didn’t know that was the only way. That was Dumbledore’s conviction, not his. Harry might survive. Harry might think of something. Severus just had to keep helping him, however he could. He just had to keep trying. And Harry might live, in the end. He might. 

Severus just couldn’t lose hope. 

He just couldn’t let the despair in, that was all. 

He just had to take each step as it was presented to him. One at a time. And maybe Harry would speak, some day. If he hadn’t taken off the bracelet. 

***

Severus spent Christmas Day ensconced in his rooms, maintaining his Occlumency, updating Draco’s scars, and wishing he hadn’t resolved to stop drinking hard alcohol. At least he hadn’t ever spent Christmas with Harry. If he’d had even a single memory of Harry in festive pajamas in front of a sparkling tree anywhere in his mind, he probably would not have been able to control the urge to get drunk. But he didn’t have any of those memories. All of his memories of Harry at Christmastime were soaked in guilt, and shame, and fear - and those emotions, he knew how to control. Harry, stricken with dread at the idea that Severus was sending him away. Harry, cornered by the Minister, out in the snow. Harry, white and unconscious, with one arm hanging off the bed. Harry, terrified of his love, begging for abuse. 

Pain, he could control. Remorse, too. It was hope, and the memory of hope that really tore him open, and there was very little of that.

So, he made it through Christmas, and then, the very next day, the deluminator spoke, and Phineus reported to his office with the news that Harry and Hermione were camping in the Forest of Dean, and Severus finally had something to do. Having something to do was better than the waiting, even if he really, really didn’t want to do it. 

***

Severus looked down at the frozen lake for a while, deliberating, and wondering if everything really needed to be so fucking symbolic, or if he was just buying in to Albus’ excentricities. One would have thought he’d be free of that once Albus was dead, but apparently not. 

He folded his arms. He did not want to make Harry go in there. It was way too cold. But Albus absolutely insisted that the sword could only be retrieved under conditions of _genuine heroism,_ and he could not think of any way to make it less dangerous while still being real enough to suit the damn sword. So, he put the blade into the pool, froze it back over, and withdrew behind a pair of close-set trees. He cast a disillusionment charm over himself, too, for good measure. He wasn’t sure which direction Ron would come from, and he certainly couldn’t just be standing there in plain sight when he appeared. 

He sighed, already feeling guilty, and raised his wand. It took a moment to think of anything joyful enough to produce a Patronus. At first, all he could think of was Harry falling from the motorbike, which was the last time Severus had seen him. But then, he remembered something else. Harry, popping his head out of his invisibility cloak just to summon a bouquet of red roses.

_‘Oh, one more thing. Happy Valentine’s day.’_

That was enough. 

_“Expecto Patronum!”_

_***_

As Harry came into view following his Patronus, the first thing Severus noticed about him once the initial pang wore off was how thin he was. He was wearing about seven sweaters, but even so, Severus could tell. His cheekbones were sharper than they had been in July, and his eyes were shadowed and deep-set in the doe’s silver glow. And then, when Harry had come close enough, and Severus let his Patronus vanish, he noticed that something else was different about him, too. He was using a wand. And it didn’t look right in his hand, either. It looked awkward, and uncomfortable, and his _lumos_ was not as bright as Severus had seen him cast before. He wondered if Harry was trying to keep his wandless magic secret, or… what?

He watched as Harry started pacing back and forth, circling the pool like he was trying to think of any way at all he might be able to avoid going for a swim. But there wasn’t any other way, and after a while, he heaved a great sigh and started stripping off, and Severus began to see how very thin he was. He must have lost a full stone since the summer, and he hadn’t had much to spare to begin with. Severus could see the nobs of his spine very clearly, and each of his ribs as he bent over to untie his shoes. He was bruised, too, and there were cuts on him, and scrapes, and a partially healed set of punctures on his arm like he’d been bitten. By an uncommonly large snake. 

His heart squeezing painfully in his chest, Severus curled his hands into fists against the bark. Phineas Nigellus told him they sometimes complained about being hungry, but Severus had not been prepared to see him like this. Injured - wounded - and _so thin._ Harry and Hermione were obviously doing far more poorly than he’d ever imagined. And what had Severus been doing this whole time? Helping _Draco?_ Fucking wasting time with _Draco,_ while Harry was starving. Merlin. As if Harry hadn’t been starved enough in his life.

There was a little glitter as Harry turned towards the pool, and Severus’ morose self-hatred suddenly hit a wall. That _glitter._ It was the bracelet. So focused had he been on how unwell Harry looked, it had taken him that long to notice that he was wearing the _bracelet._ There it was, shimmering on his left wrist in the weak wandlight. He hadn’t taken it off, after all. It was right there. 

But there was another glitter, too. Around his neck. A heavy chain that Severus had never seen before. He shifted to try to get a better look, but just then Harry plunged into the water and began to shiver so violently that it made small waves lap over the bank. He moaned in pain through the chattering of his teeth, and instantly all thoughts of the mysterious necklace were driven out of Severus’ head. He dug his fingers hard into the rough surface of the trees to keep himself quiet, watching in horror as Harry took a great gasp of air, gathered his courage, and dove under the surface. Such _courage._ He was unbelievably strong, even now. 

Watching the ripples that he left in the frigid water, Severus thought that if Albus’ insistence on chivalry and danger turned out to be bullshit, he really would tear the portrait off the wall and burn it. And then he’d go find every other portrait of Dumbledore in the entire world and destroy all those, too, for putting Harry through this. 

Ronald Weasley appeared from out of the dark, and Severus watched, still as a statue, as he stopped at the edge of the pond and looked down into it. Harry did not resurface. 

_Go in after him,_ Severus thought. _Go on._

There was a disturbance in the water. A… thrashing.

_Go in after him! What are you waiting for?_

For one heart-stopping moment, Severus thought Ron wasn’t going to do it - that maybe he himself was meant to - but then Ron dove, fully dressed, into the pool. It took only a few seconds for him to drag Harry back out onto the snow - but - something was wrong. The chain around his neck had tightened to the skin, _into_ his skin, and Ron struggled with it for about three seconds before pulling out his wand. 

_“Diffindo!”_ he gasped, trembling and sodden, and the necklace came away. But Harry did not stir as Ron jumped back into the freezing water for the sword. 

_FUCKING HELL LEAVE THE SWORD DRY HIM OFF FIRST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?_

Severus stared, paralyzed, at Harry laying there in his underwear. Ron was in the water. Harry was wet and almost naked in the snow and if he stayed like that for much longer he was going to die. He had to act. He had to do _something._

As quickly as he could, Severus stuck his wand through the crack between the two trees and whispered, _“recalfacio.”_ At once, the frigid water disappeared from Harry’s skin, and Severus had only just pulled his arm out of sight when Ron burst back out of the pond, and crawled out onto the bank with the sword of Gryffindor clutched in his white and shaking hand. He staggered to his feet, coughing and shivering, and then looked at Harry laying there.

“Are - you - _mental?”_

Thank god - at the sound of his voice, Harry stirred, and tried to stand, though he couldn’t quite manage it. Severus’ heart was pounding out of his chest.

_I’m going to kill Albus again. MERLIN._

“Why the _hell_ didn’t you take this thing off before you dived?” Ron panted, holding up the severed chain. Severus could see that it was a locket, now. 

Harry reached out for the pile of clothes he’d shed and started trying to pull them back on, though he was still shivering so hard he could barely control his arms. He didn’t seem to notice he was dry, though. Severus could the livid red mark around his neck where the chain had cut in very clearly against his pallid skin. What the fuck was it? It almost strangled him. 

Clumsily, Harry began to pull on his clothes. His lips were blue, but he was conscious, and dressing, and he had the sword. So, Severus faded back into the shadows and apparated to the nearest village. He had some things to purchase, and if he was fast enough he could beat the pair of them back to their tent. 

  
  



	17. Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made some doodles over the months writing this fic of some of the scenes/mostly just emotional snarry sketches. Check em out if you want
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/chickenpets

“She’s like a sister to me,” Harry said softly, resting his hand on Ron’s shaking shoulder. “I love her. Like a _sister._ I thought you knew.” He squeezed a little, glancing over at the broken locket, smoking sinisterly on the stone where Ron had stabbed it. It was finally dead, and torturing Ron had, apparently, been it’s final act. But it was gone, now, and it couldn’t hurt any of them ever again. “I mean, mate,” Harry continued. “I’m gay. I figured that was obvious.” Ron chuckled weakly, and wiped his nose.

The walk to the pool with the silver doe had been surreal, and very long, but the trip back with Ron by his side seemed hardly a stroll in the park. Harry felt buoyant. Ron had returned, and the Horcrux was destroyed, and Hermione would stop crying, now. Harry couldn’t wait to tell her.

“Who d’ya r-reckon cast that patronus?” Ron asked as they walked. He was still shivering hard in his wet clothes, and Harry sped up a little, taking hold of his arm. He wasn’t sure he could cast a very good warming charm on him with Hermione’s borrowed wand. Might light him on fire. “I thought you w-were doing it at first. For light or s-something.”

“No, my patronus is a stag.” 

“Oh, y-yeah, I thought it looked a bit d-different. No antlers.”

“You didn’t see anyone, though?”

“Well, I thought I saw something move over in the t-trees, but you seemed like the priority right then so I d-didn’t investigate.” He laughed weakly. “Since, y’know… you were d-drowning.” They could just see the feeble light of Hermione’s bluebell flames between some of the trees, and they sped up a little more.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, stepping into their clearing. “I don’t think the Horcrux wanted me to get the sw - ” He stopped so suddenly that Ron almost tripped over him. 

“What?” he asked. Harry just pointed mutely beside the entrance flap, where a parcel sat, incongruously steaming in the chill air. 

“It was Severus,” Harry said. “Severus cast that patronus.”

“What?” Ron asked again, sounding scared. “How do you know that?”

“It was him.”

***

Hermione was not happy to see Ron. In fact, she punched him, and then kept punching him until Harry separated them with a shield charm. 

“Hermione!” Harry gasped, when she threw herself against the barrier. “Calm - ”

“I WILL NOT BE CALM!” she shrieked back, and then rounded on Ron, pointing at him in dire accusation. “YOU! I came running after you! I called you! I begged for you to come back! I BEGGED!” She was so enraged that she didn’t even notice that Ron was sopping wet, or that he had the sword, or that Harry’s hands were full.

“I’m sorry!” 

“SORRY? You come back here after weeks - _weeks - !”_

Hermione did not stop shouting for a while, and though the shield charm kept her from beating Ron into a bloody pulp, Harry wasn’t able to get a single word in edgewise until she’d quite exhausted herself. He used the opening wisely when there was one, though. 

“We destroyed the Horcrux, Hermione. It’s dead.”

“You… what?” 

She glared at them both from inside her wild halo of hair. It always seemed to expand when she was enraged. It was scary, and Harry continued quickly, holding out his hands.

“Ron saved me, and then he stabbed the locket with the sword of Gryffindor.” Ron raised the sword so she could see it, looking sheepish. 

“... What?”

“Yeah, and if you just listen for a minute, I’ll tell you.”

Harry told her about the doe, and the frozen pool, and the sword, and the Horcrux trying to strangle him, and about Ron saving him, and stabbing the locket. He left out the part about Voldemort’s soul laying bare all of Ron’s deepest fears, and the weird clones of Harry and Hermione that appeared out of the two little windows just to say terrible things and snog. Harry hoped he’d forget ever seeing that, some day. Gross.

“But… whose Patronus was it?”

Harry held out the package. “It was Severus.”

“Snape?” Hermione asked, her curiosity finally overcoming her fury. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” Harry answered, finally dropping the shield charm, and kneeling down to untie the twine holding the package closed. “I’ve never seen his Patronus before, but who else would have left this?” Steam billowed out as he opened it, filling their little tent with a delicious aroma. 

“Oh, god, that smells good,” Hermione moaned, her eyes going wide. They’d been subsisting mostly on scavenged mushrooms and food stolen from local farms for weeks, and she was already reaching out for it when she finally asked, “are you sure it’s safe?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, because he was sure. 

He pulled out a tureen of steaming leek and potato soup, two loaves of fresh bread, a tin of butter, a bakewell tart, and about ten different packages of biscuits, along with boxes of tea, and sugar, some scones, and two jars of strawberry preserves. There was a bottle of brandy, too, and, at the very bottom, a handful of chocolate bars. 

“Jaffa cakes!” Hermione gasped, as she helped him lay out the contents. “Oh, I love those.”

“I bet he saw me go into the water and thought I looked too skinny,” Harry laughed, ladling soup out into the three bowls Ron brought over. “He tries to make me eat all the time. Or - I mean…” he stopped, and blushed. “I mean… he used to, before.”

It was two in the morning, and they feasted. It was the best meal Harry’d had in months, and after they ate, he was overcome with a drowsiness so deep that he almost fell asleep right on the floor with a half-empty glass of brandy in his hand. Hermione roused him, though, and coaxed him into his bunk, and it was there, in a tipsy, exhausted, well-fed stupor that he touched his finger to his cuff, and thought, _that was your doe._

***

Severus was not in bed when his bracelet warmed. He was in his office, pacing back and forth and yelling at Albus’ portrait about how fucking cold the water had been.

“You should have seen him! The two of them. They could have died! How could - ” He broke off, freezing mid-stride. For a moment he almost couldn’t believe it, despite the evidence of his own nerves.

“Oh, is it Harry?” Albus asked serenely from the wall. “Wonderful.”

Severus glared fiercely at him and pulled back his sleeve, angling his body so the portrait couldn’t see what it said. He read the message through what felt like ten times before finding the courage to respond, his heart beating so hard he could feel it in his head. Harry had spoken. Harry had known it was him, and he wanted to talk to him, after all this time.

“Yes,” he said, touching his wand to the silver. “It was mine.”

 _[I thought so]_ appeared, and then, after a moment longer, _[thanks for the food. It was really good]_

Severus’ throat constricted. “You’re so thin,” he whispered. 

_[Figured that was why]_

“What does he say?” Albus asked.

“None of your business,” Severus spat back, not looking up. He touched the silver again. “Are you - alright? Have you warmed up?”

_[I’m okay. Brandy helped]_

A pause.

_[Sle e p y]_

“You should sleep. You need to heal - and,” he scowled pointedly at Albus, “you’ve been through a terrible ordeal.” 

There was another long pause, and then, very slowly, a response appeared, almost one letter at a time, like the thought that produced it was unclear. It was just the opposite of the garbled message Harry sent him when he saw Lupin at the Burrow. That one had flickered into life all at once, with all the letters mashed together. This one had the quality of a slurred whisper, and reading it, Severus was abruptly and excruciatingly filled with memories of Harry, soft and sleepy, speaking to him in the dark. 

_[ l o v e m i s s y o u w i s h ]_

“Oh, god,” he breathed, and touched his wand back to answer. “I love you, too. More than ever.” One of the portraits behind him made a little cooing noise, but he ignored it and collapsed back into his chair, putting his head in his hands. “Six months,” he moaned. “Six _months._ I thought - I thought he - ” He forced himself to stop speaking. Every single dead Headmaster did not need to hear his innermost fears. He pressed the heels of his palms hard into his eyes. 

“That he was gone?” Albus asked. 

“Yes,” Severus answered shortly. 

“How did he look?”

“Awful. Battered.”

“You said he was thin?”

“Practically emaciated.”

“Maybe you should send some food before they move.”

Severus lifted his head to glare at the portrait again. “You think I’d leave him like that, do you?”

***

Harry did not really expect Hermione’s rage towards Ron to cool overnight, so he was not surprised when she communicated mostly through glaring and pointed silences the next day. That did not dampen his spirits, though, for Ron had returned, and the locket was gone, and Severus sent him food. He vaguely remembered saying something to him, too, before he fell asleep, but he could not quite recall what it was. So, that morning, while Ron very contritely made the tea and scones for breakfast, Harry sat with Hermione around the bluebell flames, and pushed back his sleeve.

“I think I asked him if the doe was his last night before I fell asleep,” he said. 

“Did you?” Hermione asked. “What did he say?”

“I dunno,” Harry answered, and hovered his hand over the silver. “Do you think I should ask again?” He was nervous, and maybe Hermione could feel it, because she rested her head on his shoulder and sighed.

“I think you should. You haven’t said anything to him all this time, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You believe he’s on our side?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you should talk to him, then. No reason not to.”

“No reason,” Harry agreed. He touched the silver, shied away from it, and then touched it again, and held his breath.

***

Severus’ bracelet warmed as he sat having breakfast at his dining table, and he almost knocked his cup of tea onto the floor in his haste to pull up his sleeve. 

_[Morning]_ was all it said.

“Good Morning,” he answered, his heart racing. “How are you feeling?”

_[I feel ok. Thanks for the food. Did I say that last night?]_

Oh, he didn’t remember. That was alright, though. He was talking, and that was more than Severus had hoped for since October, when he decided that Harry despised him and would never speak to him again. 

“You did.” 

_[I asked about the doe, too?]_

“Yes.”

_[That was your Patronus]_

“It was.” He paused. “Sorry for the ice bath.”

_[Last time the sword came to me I was about to be eaten by a giant snake. I’ll take a little cold water]_

Severus laughed, and for a moment it was almost like Harry was right there beside him, making some morbid joke about his near-deaths with a charming little twinkle in his eye. Like he was still there, having a hot breakfast at Severus’ table, lovely, and healthy, and within reach. 

“I miss you,” he said.

***

_[I miss you]_

“Aww,” Hermione said, looking down at his arm. 

_Do you?_ Harry thought, ignoring her. 

_[Oh, yes. Every day]_

_But you never said anything to me. Not a single word, all this time._

_[I left something for you at Grimmauld Place, did you find it?]_

_The yarrow?_

_[Yes]_

_Yeah, I have it. Hermione looked it up for me._

_[I was hoping she would]_

_Why didn’t you say anything?_

There was no immediate answer, and Ron came back in with a tray laiden with breakfast. He stopped in the doorway, looking at the two of them.

“What’s up?” he asked. Hermione glared at him and turned her back, so Ron came over to Harry, first. “Scone?” 

“Thanks,” Harry answered quietly, still looking down at his arm as Ron handed him a plate. 

“Are you… talking to Snape?” 

“Yeah.”

“What does he say?”

“He says sorry about the ice bath.” But just then the bracelet warmed again.

_[I was afraid]_

_Afraid to talk to me?_

_[Yes. Are your friends there with you, now?]_

_Yeah, they’re here. Ron toasted your scones. Hermione is mad at him for leaving so he’s trying to make nice._

_[Will you tell him something for me?]_

_If you want._

_[Tell him that I’m sorry about his brother]_ Harry held out his arm for Ron to see, and Ron took it, and frowned. _[But his sister is perfectly well. I sent her to Hagrid, though the Carrows had other ideas]_

“Wow,” Ron said. “Who are the Carrows?”

“Those are the Deatheaters that got hired at Hogwarts, remember? They were there in the tower that night.” He was pretty sure one of them cast the _cruciatus_ on him, too, but he didn’t say that. The memory was hazy, bookended by the very clear images of flying to the astronomy tower with Dumbledore, and waking up in the hospital wing, alone, surrounded by people.

“Oh. Well. Tell him thanks for the food. And… the sword, I guess.”

“I did.” 

Ron sat down, and then passed a plate to Harry to give to Hermione, who took it with an icy silence. 

_[Phineas told me he left because of the things I’ve done]_

_No,_ Harry answered. _It was the locket. You were incidental. You were an excuse._

_[The locket?]_

Harry hadn’t meant to say that. Severus was not supposed to know about the Horcruxes - Dumbledore had made him promise that, before he died. He wondered if that promise still mattered, now, or if they were beyond it. It felt like they were beyond everything. 

_Why did you kill Dumbledore?_ he asked. _I need to know that, first._

He took a sip of tea just to have something to do with his hands, as Hermione and Ron pretended they couldn’t see each other. 

_[I had to. As I told you]_

_I need more than that. I saw it. I was there._

_[I know you were. I saw the brooms. I knew you were there, and I - ]_ Another long pause, which Harry did not soften. He didn’t take another sip of tea, or a single bite of the scone Ron had slathered in butter and preserves, either. He just stared at his bracelet, waiting.

“Are you ok?” Hermione asked. “Harry?” He just shushed her. 

_[I didn’t want you to see it]_ finally appeared. 

_Well, I did,_ Harry answered. _Tell me why. No lies. I want the whole truth._

_[All of it?]_

_Yes._

_[There is a lot of truth]_

_If you still love me, just tell me. Ok?_

Harry rubbed the mark the locket had left around his neck, and waited again as Hermione frowned at him, and Ron looked at her and then away. But then, lines of text began to appear, one at a time, across his bracelet. Lines and lines and lines of text. 

_[I do love you. I do. I’ve been waiting for you to speak all this time. I was hoping that you would, and now you have, and I’ll tell you everything I can. Dumbledore and I both knew that Draco would be sent to kill him. To punish his father, as I told you. That was real. That was the truth. But before I ever got to Grimmauld place last summer, Draco’s mother came to me at my home in Cokeworth. She made me swear to protect her son from the obvious threat on his life. I made an Unbreakable Vow, with her sister Bellatrix as witness. Once it was done, I told Albus everything, but he was not concerned. For he had contracted a deadly curse, and had only a short time to live]_

_His hand?_

_[Yes, his hand. It was a cursed ring. He called me to intervene as soon as it happened, but I did not succeed in curing him. The magic was too strong, too dark, and I could only contain it, not stop it. His life was limited to a single year at most. So, when he found out about Draco’s predicament, he asked me for a favor. To kill him, in Draco’s stead. He wanted to preserve Draco’s soul from the damage inflicted by such an act, and to prevent a more vicious Deatheater from stepping in. I agreed to act on his behalf, and on the boy’s. I didn’t know then what I would lose]_

“What is he saying?” Hermione asked, and Harry held up a hand to silence her.

_[I didn’t - ]_

_You didn’t love me yet,_ Harry supplied.

 _[Oh, no]_ appeared. _[I loved you. I just didn’t know it. I’ve wasted months and months. Years, maybe. It is the greatest regret of my life]_

Harry covered his mouth, and Ron looked into his tea. 

_I think maybe you should stop,_ Harry thought, and then pressed his thumb into his wrist.

_[Am I upsetting you?]_

_Yes._

_[I’m sorry]_ A pause. _[Is the point still working?]_

Despite himself, Harry let out a single shallow breath of laughter. Severus could still read him that well, even now, when they were so far apart it felt like an unbridgeable gulf. He touched the silver again.

_I was just using it now. It still works. I’ve still been practicing._

_[Good. Can I ask you some questions?]_

_No. I’m not done. There’s more I want to know._

_[You said I was upsetting you]_

_I’m fine._ He pressed into the point again, and he was fine. He was. _You left me._

_[Yes]_

_You took Malfoy with you instead of me._

_[There was no other way]_

_I called for you. I screamed for you._

_[I know. I know you did. I could hear you]_

Harry stood up suddenly. “I need some… air,” he said, grabbing a coat.

“Harry? Don’t go outside, It’s freezing!” Hermione called after him, but Harry did not answer. He just pulled on his shoes and left the tent.

_[Harry?]_

He walked out into the woods, into the snow, and kept walking until the clearing was out of sight. In among the trees, the watery sunlight cast weak shadows on the sparkling ground. Spidery bare branches, and the grey ghost of Harry’s own body, keeping pace with him. He kept walking until he found a fallen tree, brushed the snow off of it, and sat down. 

_[Harry? Are you there?]_

_Why?_ Harry sent back. _Am I concerning you?_

_[Yes, you are]_

_You don’t get to be concerned about me anymore._

_[I’m afraid I cannot control that]_

_How long has it been?_

_[Since I left?]_

_Yeah. Since then._

_[Almost six months to the day. Have you been sleeping?]_

_Sometimes. Have you?_

_[Sometimes]_

Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses, and found that they were wet. That made him mad. He was so tired of crying over Severus, and he’d thought he was done with it. But now that he’d spoken - now that he’d opened the door - it was like the wound was torn open again. He used his trigger point, and then sent, _I hate you._

As soon as he’d done it, he wanted to take it back, but of course he couldn’t. So, instead, he stood back up and kicked the fallen tree as hard as he could.

_[I love you, though]_

***

_[You left me]_ appeared five times in a row on Severus’ wrist. He watched them flicker into life, one by one, and imagined he could hear Harry’s voice, screaming it. He’d dreamt this. Harry, shouting at him, _‘I hate you! You left me!’_ He must have dreamt it a hundred times in between visions of Harry’s grizzly death and dismemberment. He didn’t try to interrupt. He just waited until they stopped, wishing desperately that he was close enough to touch, though surely Harry wouldn’t allow it right then, even if they were together. 

“I know it isn’t enough,” Severus said. “But I am sorry.”

 _[Sorry?]_ appeared. _[Sorry? How dare you?]_

Severus just waited. He was very sure there was more coming, and he was right.

_[I called for you asking for help with Dumbledore and you didn’t answer. I begged you. I called and called and you didn’t come. He was sick. There was a potion that I had to make him drink and I wanted to stop but I didn’t because he made me promise not to. He was so sick and we needed you. I needed you]_

There was a pause, and it was almost like Harry was drawing breath, though Severus was quite sure he wasn’t speaking out loud, wherever he was. So, Severus just waited, wanting Harry to say more. To excoriate him. To cut him absolutely to shreds, because that was what he deserved. It would be better if Harry could shout - scream right into his face. This text through the bracelets was not nearly as painful as he wanted it to be. 

_[Do you know who was there for me when I woke up? Lupin. He was there and not you because you were gone. He told me I was safe and I don’t remember anything after that but Hermione said I had to be sedated because I wouldn’t stop screaming. She said I broke all the windows]_

No, Severus was wrong. This was painful enough. This was torture.

***

Harry sat back down on the log and put his head between his knees, breathing hard. But he wasn’t done. When he was done he’d go into his magic and calm down, but not yet. He held his finger to his cuff and thought, all in a jumble:

_Hermione took my bracelet off me because she thought I wouldn’t want it and it was like you were dead you were dead and gone forever how could you do this to me I went to Dumbeldore’s funeral and everyone thought I wasn’t crying because I was in shock after seeing him die but they were wrong it was you you were gone and no one knew why I cared so much about you they all thought I was crazy everyone thought I’d lost my mind and tiptoed around me so careful and whispered behind my back and I couldn’t tell anyone the truth and you took Malfoy with you you chose him you protected him and not me you left me in the dirt you just left me there._

He dug his thumb in hard, and counted to five. 

“Harry? Harry?” Hermione and Ron were calling for him. “Where’d you go?”

His wrist warmed and he lifted his head to look, though his vision doubled a little and it took him a moment to focus.

 _[Use your point]_ it said. 

_I DID,_ he thought. 

_[Again]_

Harry pressed his thumb in again, realized he was obeying Severus’ order, and let out a scream of rage and grief. He still wanted to _obey._ It still felt so good to _obey._ God, he really was mental, just like Lupin said. He was fucking _insane._ And he hated Severus so much, and wanted him so badly - wanted so badly for Severus to touch him - to tell him what to do - to comfort him - and this was why he hadn’t spoken all this time. This was why. He felt he might break apart. Fucking _shatter._

“Harry? He’s over here!”

There was the sound of running feet through the snow, and then four hands on him. 

***

“Did you use it?” Severus asked, but there was no answer. “Harry?” Still nothing. “Harry? Please answer me.” 

Harry did not answer him, and Severus sat in his rooms for a long time, just waiting, wishing for more of Harry’s fury. Nothing came, though, and after a while he put on his winter clothes and went out into the grounds to take a walk. They were deserted, as most everyone had fled the school for the Christmas Holidays, and Severus took his time, circling the lake and walking out towards the Whomping Willow, thinking.

He did not like the idea of Harry waking up in the hospital wing to Lupin at his bedside, and he did not like the idea of Harry so hysterical that he’d needed to be tranquilized. He didn’t like the way Harry had accused him of “choosing” Draco, either. That thought had never crossed his mind - what Harry might have thought to see them running away together. He’d thought that his loyalty was too strong, his devotion too deep, for anything so petty as a rival. But obviously Harry did not feel that way. And how could he? They would have to talk about it more, later, if Harry allowed it. 

Scuffing his feet through the snow, Severus imagined what would have happened if he’d allowed Draco into his rooms, even once. If he had, and Harry had that map… Thank god. Harry was already so hurt, Severus had already wounded him so deeply - surely one more small betrayal would have broken him in two. 

Thinking of how fragile Harry looked out in the snow, he fiercely regretted not speaking first. How had he thought that was the right choice? His reasoning all felt terribly selfish, now. Harry had needed him before, and Harry needed him now, and he could scream and rage all he wanted. He could despise Severus for as long as he needed, and when he was done, Severus would still be there for him, if he could be. He’d made a mistake in not speaking first. He’d done it out of fear - to protect himself from Harry’s anger - and it had been a mistake. Possibly an unfixable one. 

And those wounds. The punctures on his arm… from Nagini, certainly, though she obviously had not injected her venom into the bite. If she had, Harry would already be dead. The Dark Lord must have only wanted her to incapacitate him, not kill him. But Harry’d escaped again, and the Dark Lord had called Severus back to soothe his fury with a little dip into the pool of unforgivable depravity Severus had collected in his brain. 

A shiver of self-loathing raised the hairs on his arms at the thought, and he cleared the snow from a bench and sat down. 

Sitting there, looking at the glittering landscape, he thought about the bruises and cuts on Harry’s body, and then about that locket digging into his skin. What had Harry been doing wearing that? What was it? It tried to strangle him. 

He stared unseeingly at the frozen lake, and the barren trees. 

Harry said it was the locket that drove Ron away. And… Albus sent Severus to bring him the sword of Gryffindor. Goblin-made. Priceless. A precious artifact last used to kill a Basilisk in the bowels of the school. And the way the locket had tightened when Harry tried to retrieve the blade. Like it was trying to prevent him… from touching it. Like it was… alive. 

An image flashed into his mind: Hermione, sitting before his desk - sharp, intelligent, fearless in her love for Harry - wanting to trade. Looking him right in the eye, and asking him… 

Severus stopped his mind mid-thought. He had to think of something else, right now. Albus was absolutely right. This was far too dangerous to have in his brain at all. Critically dangerous. He did not need to think about this. He did not need to know what Harry and his friends were doing. And he didn’t. He didn’t know anything.

_You have no idea what he’s doing. Think about something else. Think about Harry hating you. Think about how thin he is. How his bones showed through his skin. Think about what you’ve done to him. What a coward you are. Think about that, instead. Think about Harry, alone, in the hospital, without you. He thought you left him for Draco. And you did. That hurts, doesn’t it? Think about that, instead._

Severus did think about those things until he was very upset and his previous musings were purged from his head. Then, feeling quite empty, he looked down at his silent bracelet until he was shivering with cold, and then went back inside. Making himself a cup of hot tea, he wondered if Harry had calmed down, and if maybe he would speak again soon, when he was ready. He hoped he would. He had so much to ask, and so much to say. 

Harry did not speak again until late that night, but Severus was still up. He hardly slept at all, anymore, and certainly he would not sleep anytime soon. He wasn’t even in bed, though it was long past midnight. Instead, he was sitting on the sofa in front of the fire in his shirtsleeves when his bracelet warmed, and the sensation and setting and time were so incredibly familiar that he was struck with a jolt of déjà vu. Harry might have just been in Gryffindor Tower, instead of six-hundred kilometers away. If he was still in the Forest of Dean, that was. 

_[I have more questions]_ appeared first. _[Can you talk?]_

“Yes,” Severus answered. “Ask away.”

  
  



	18. Heal

Harry watched the light of the bluebell flames flickering across the canvas above his head. The night was very still, and he could hear Hermione and Ron both breathing deeply and evenly in the other bunks. He was feeling a lot calmer now, too, after telling Ron and Hermione what Severus said about Dumbledore’s death. Ron had told him that Unbreakable Vows really were unbreakable - that if you went back on one, it was fatal - so, Severus really hadn’t had a choice. That didn’t make him feel that much better, though. 

_What happened after you left?_ was the first thing he asked. _Where did you go?_

_[I apparated to Malfoy Manor with the others. There was a… celebration]_

Harry could already tell he was going to get upset again. But that didn’t matter. He wanted to know - _needed_ to know - so he took a deep breath and continued. 

_A celebration? That is revolting._

_[It was. It was revolting]_

_And then what? What did you do? Tell me everything._

_[I had to stay there for some time. Until the Ministry fell. So, I did some work to secure my memories of you, and did my best to appear as loyal as possible. After killing Albus, it was not a very tall order. The Dark Lord trusts me as much as he trusts anyone, I think]_

_Is that good?_

_[That is the purpose, yes. For him to trust me]_

_So you can betray him?_

_[Preferably at a critical moment]_

_What happened to Malfoy?_

There was a long silence, and Harry realized he was holding his breath, and he let it back out again, as quietly as he could. 

_[Draco did something. You aren’t going to like hearing it. It’s… Are you sure you want to know?]_

_Of course I want to know. How bad could it be? Compared to everything else._

_[It’s bad]_ a pause. _[It’s going to upset you]_

_I’m already upset. Go on._

_[It has to do with us. With you, and I, and our]_ a pause. _[Relationship]_

_Just fucking spit it out. God._

_[Alright, I’m sorry. I will. Draco was afraid he’d be punished for failing to fulfill his mission, so he went to the Dark Lord with information about us. He heard you calling for me, and had seen us at school. He had some suspicions that my loyalties had reversed. I had to show the Dark Lord some things. Some lies, mostly. But]_ The words broke off, and Harry suddenly became aware of the blood rushing in his ears. _[He’s seen]_ another long pause. _[I made it seem as if I’ve been using you]_

_You didn’t._

_[I’m sorry. I had a feeling it would happen. I took some precautions. I was prepared for Him to ask about us. He thinks you are weak. That I’ve damaged you]_

_I am, and you have,_ Harry sent back, and sat up. 

_[You are so much stronger than I ever could have hoped]_

Strong? Harry did not feel strong. He felt like he was made of straw, and Severus’ confidence in him after what he’d done was offensive.

_Don’t lie._

_[It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. You’re a survivor. He almost caught you Christmas Eve, didn’t he?]_

_I’m not answering any questions. What happened to Draco after that?_

_[Alright, no questions, and no lies. After that… The Dark Lord offered him to me. As a gift]_

_What?_

_[A reward, for killing the Headmaster. To take your place]_

_Jesus Christ, what?_ Harry pressed his thumb into his wrist, counted to five, and then slid to the floor. All at once the tent seemed crushingly small, like it was suffocating him. Voldemort gave Draco to Severus as a _gift?_ What the fuck did that even mean? He pulled on his shoes and went outside. He didn’t have a cloak, but the frigid air felt good. Like being slapped. He touched the bracelet.

_You have a new slave, now, is that it? Didn’t take you very long to move on._

_[No, I don’t. And I haven’t moved on. I told the Dark Lord I didn’t want him]_

_How rude of you. Poor Draco just wants to be loved like everyone else._

_[Harry]_

_Don’t Harry me. Just tell me what happened next._

_[It’s complicated]_

_I’ve been known to understand complicated things._

_[Well, after that, you were moved from Privet Drive. I think you remember]_

Harry stopped still in the snow. _I saw him torturing you that night._

_[You did? I’m sorry]_

_Why did he do that?_

_[Because I let you escape. We weren’t prepared for the decoys. He was angry]_

_I’ve never heard anyone scream like that._

_[I’ve heard you scream like that]_

Harry touched his finger to the bracelet, and then took it away, and looked into the dark forest. He was already shivering from the cold, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to go back to the tent, and he didn’t want to talk through the bracelets anymore, either. He couldn’t see Severus’ face, and he needed to see it to have this conversation. Through the cuffs it was like reading a book about his own life. It was clinical, and cold, and it made him feel like he wasn’t a real person. His head was spinning with images of Severus writhing on the ground, and Malfoy as a _gift_ and a _slave,_ and Hagrid falling from the motorbike, and Nagini squirming out of Bathilda Bagshot’s wasted corpse, and Hermione holding his broken wand and his childhood home in Godric’s Hollow, blasted apart. He needed to see Severus and he needed to see him right now. 

_I want you to come,_ he sent.

_[What?]_

_I’m going to call you and if you don’t come I’ll never speak to you again. Do you understand me? Never. I’m going to give you one chance and it’s right now._

_[Give me five minutes and I’ll do whatever you want]_

_Fine._

Harry paced back and forth in the snow, shivering hard, trying not to lose his nerve. Did he really want to see Severus? He did. But did he? What if Severus was different? Or… if he didn’t come. What if Harry called him and he didn’t come?

_[Call]_

Harry closed his fingers around his cuff and thought it without hesitation. If he hesitated, he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it at all. 

_Chimera._

There was a frozen moment when nothing at all happened, and Harry’s fear peaked, but then Severus appeared right in front of him - mere centimeters away - and Harry leapt back and held out his hands.

“Don’t touch me, ok? Don’t.”

Severus’ eyes traveled over him and he held out his hands, too. “I won’t. I won’t touch you. But… Harry. You aren’t dressed properly. For the snow.” His voice was very soft, like he was addressing a cornered animal, or a mental patient. Harry was a cornered mental patient, he supposed. He could hear his own teeth chattering, and he clenched them together hard to make them stop. 

“I’m fine,” he said.

Severus didn’t speak right away, but an expression passed over his face that Harry had seen before. He’d seen it hundreds of times, maybe, though he hadn’t ever fully understood it until right then. Compassion, and love, and fear, and remorse, and guilt, all mashed together in a mad jumble of every emotion Harry did not want to feel. And seeing it in Severus’ eyes, he suddenly _was_ feeling it, and under its weight, he swayed on his feet. Immediately, before he could so much as reach out to a tree for support, Severus’ arms were around him, and they were both on their knees in the snow. 

“You p-promised me,” Harry gasped into his cloak, digging his numb fingers in as hard as he could manage. “How c-could you - d-do this?”

“I’m sorry,” Severus answered, his voice cracking, and Harry thought distantly that he had never heard Severus’ voice crack before. He’d always been so steady, all through everything. Steady, and stalwart, and _lying._ “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Harry wanted badly to speak, to shout, to wrench back, but he couldn't. He was shivering too hard to form any more words, and he was too tired to push him away, so he just clung to Severus’ clothes as best he could with his frozen hands and buried his face. 

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Severus was murmuring into his hair. “God, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so terribly.” After so many months, the touch of his hands was shocking. They felt like hot irons through Harry’s shirt and on the back of his neck, and he tried to recoil, but only succeeded in bringing himself closer to Severus’ body, against his chest, and like that, the smell of him was absolutely overwhelming _._ Harry’s shivering redoubled. “Let me warm you up. Will you let me? Merlin, you’re so _cold.”_ Severus did not wait for an answer, but one of his burning hands withdrew and then his wand appeared at the side of Harry’s neck, against his bare skin. _“Calefaceret corposem,”_ he breathed. 

Suddenly, heat bloomed in Harry’s chest, spilling outward into his limbs like it was pouring out of the very marrow of his bones, and he went limp. 

_“Oh, god - ”_

Severus’ arms tightened around him, holding him in place, as more magic flooded out of his wand and into the air around them. Harry didn’t recognize very much of it, but his brain wasn’t working that well, anyway. He might have been casting _accio_ and Harry wouldn’t have been able to tell.

_“Excoquatur Interra. Protego Totalem. Praesidiaridam. Cave Inimicum.”_

“What are you doing?” he murmured into Severus’ clothes, not lifting his head. All his rage had melted in the delicious heat swamping his body. It was like he’d been filled with warm, fragrant oil, right up to the top of his head. He hadn’t been so warm in weeks. It made him feel faint, almost drunk, and absolutely unable to move. Severus’ left hand splayed flat on his back as he continued to execute magic that Harry had never heard before in his life, but now that his own body was warm too, it felt good. Another little moan escaped him, and Severus’ hand on his back flexed, and his fingertips pressed in, and mercy, that felt good, too. His _hands._

“ _Sanctusterram Nox. Calorcaeli._ I’m warding this spot. You’re exposed here, out in the open, and there’s a two-hundred-thousand Galleon price on your head.”

“That’s… a lot of money.”

“Not a tenth of what you’re worth.” 

Harry opened his eyes. That little quip suddenly reminded him that he was supposed to be angry, and that he’d told Severus not to touch him, but Severus was touching him anyway, and he forced his weak arms up to push himself back. 

“Don’t _flirt with me._ What’s wrong with you? God.” Severus resisted. “Get off! Let _go.”_ Finally, he did, and Harry fell back onto his hands, flinching as he braced to hit snow. But he didn’t hit snow. Instead, he landed on bare, solid earth, and he looked around, startled. The snow around them was completely gone, and the ground was warm and dry like it had been baking all day in the sun. Even the air was warm, now that he thought about it, and there was a shimmering dome around them, too. Not bright - not producing its own light - but just visible under the full moon, like a soap bubble. “Oh,” he said. Severus was still on his knees, and he did not stand as Harry struggled to his feet. “Did you trap me in here?”

“No,” Severus answered. “The barrier is porous, but we cannot be seen, or heard. And it’s cold out there, of course.” Harry glared at him. 

“You made me wait,” he said. 

Severus gestured to his winter cloak. “I needed to dress,” he said. “And I have something for you, if you’ll take it.”

“Why? What is it?” Harry crossed his arms, and Severus reached into the folds of his robes, withdrew a small jar, and held it out.

“It’s for your bruises. I saw how… hurt you are. At the pond. Will you take it?” Harry rubbed at the mark around his neck. “It’ll work on that, too. Or I could… heal you. If you prefer.” He sounded so contrite that Harry was annoyed and turned away to look outside their little bubble of summer at the heaped snow. “Harry,” Severus continued. “Will you sit?” There was another little shiver of magic behind him, and when he turned around he saw that Severus had conjured a little circular rug to cover the dirt, and two cushions of the type they’d sat on all those hours in detention. Severus was still on his knees, though. He hadn’t moved. Harry scowled at the cushions, and then past Severus’ head at the dark trees. 

“Fine,” he said finally, and sat down. When Severus still did not move, he gestured impatiently at the other cushion. “You can stop kneeling. I’m not going to behead you.”

“It might be justice,” Severus answered quietly. 

“Stop it,” Harry demanded. “Act normal or I’ll leave.” 

Severus blinked at him.

“As you wish,” he said, and lifted himself to sit cross-legged on the other cushion as Harry had indicated. “Will you let me heal you?”

“Maybe. I have more questions, first. Tell me what happened after I got to the Burrow. What happened with Draco. And - the ministry. Tell me.”

Severus took a deep breath. “Alright. Which do you want first?”

Harry thought about that. He supposed he wanted the most painful, first. Maybe that was Draco. “Malfoy. What happened to him?” he said. “And don’t try to lie.”

“I won’t lie,” Severus said. “Not to you.” Harry scoffed, but Severus just pressed onward. “After I told the Dark Lord that Draco did not interest me, he was offered to another Deatheater. Or - another Deatheater requested him. Rowle. He was… in the tower, that night.” He paused. “Draco came to me asking for protection. He was terrified. Begging. But I wasn’t sure he deserved anything from me. I told him no, at first.”

“Requested him?” Harry asked after a moment. “But… You didn’t. You didn’t let them…” he trailed off, pressing his thumb into his wrist. “You can’t have let them… have him.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Severus answered. “I knew you’d want me to try to protect him, even though you dislike him.” Harry looked down at the rug. “And I did. I did protect him. I made him promise never to speak of you again, and then I - I made some new memories to fool the Dark Lord, and it’s worked, at least so far. The other Deatheaters have stayed away. They fear me, and they think he’s mine, so they don’t touch him.” Harry did not look back up. His ears were ringing.

“Yours,” he repeated blankly to the ground. 

“No. Harry, no,” Severus said at once. “It’s fake. All of it. I mean - I’ve had to hit him - hurt him - I’ve given him some marks - but other than that I have not laid a finger on him. Nor would I. I could show you what I’ve created to fool the Dark Lord, some of the false memories, if you care to see them. Though I think maybe you would not care to. They’re… violent.”

“Are you lying?” 

“No.”

“How would I know?”

Severus shifted uncomfortably on his cushion. Harry could see it out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t know,” he said, his words careful, slow, and deliberate. “My lies are my whole life’s work. They have kept me alive all these years. And they… kept us together, after last Christmas. They’re perfect.” He paused, and Harry saw his fingers dig into his cloak. He seemed upset. “If you never trust me again, I will understand. If you - never believe another word I say, that would be your right.”

Harry did not answer that. “What did you tell V- ” he stopped himself. It wouldn’t do to have a cadre of Deatheaters suddenly appear, just because he was distracted. “He Who Must Not Be Named. What did you tell him about me?”

“I - ” There was a long pause, and Harry’s stomach dropped.

“Just say it. Just tell me what you did.”

Severus swallowed. “Well, I altered my memories to imply that I never loved you, nor cared for you at all other than as a plaything. That I’ve been drugging you to sleep every night since last June. That I defiled you, and tortured you, and turned you into an object.” He stopped. “I have never sown more despicable deceit in all my life. It made me sick.”

“Did you show him my body?”

“Yes.”

“You showed him the things you’ve done to me?”

“I changed them, but… yes.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I know.”

“Why aren’t you trying to soften it?” Harry asked. “Why are you just… telling me?”

“There is no softening it.”

“Try to make me feel better. Try to make me understand why.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try.”

Severus leaned back on his hands and looked up at the stars, and finally, Harry looked at him. It felt safe, now that his attention was directed upwards. “Alright, I’ll try. I knew there was no way to hide my feelings for you. My only hope was to change them. I thought - it worked for the Governors, so I might be able to do it again. If I’d tried to hide you altogether, The Dark Lord would have seen right through me. He would have known everything. How much I love you. How much I want to save you. Protect you. He would have known, and he would have used me to get to you. Maybe summoned you with the bracelets, or tortured me until you came to save me, and once he had you he would have killed us both. He would have made one of us watch, and then it would all be over. I had to hide you, and that was the only way I could. Right in plain sight. He understands greed and cruelty. It is logical to him that I would want to have you in that way. He thinks… he thinks that I’ve been doing his bidding all along. Hurting you, to break you. He thinks you’re just an abused boy.”

“I am an abused boy,” Harry whispered. 

“You are a well of magical power deeper than any I have ever encountered. You are a force of nature. No one can break you.”

“You’re just saying that to make yourself feel better,” Harry said, watching as Severus’ whole body went rigid. He almost felt bad. Almost. But it was good to see some emotion from him, even if he was trying to hide it.

“Maybe,” Severus answered quietly. “I might be.”

“Tell me what else you’ve done.”

“I killed the Minister.”

“What?”

Severus still did not look at him, but continued to speak up towards the sky like he was praying. “I was there when the Ministry fell. We captured him, and… I tortured him to death.”

“Why?”

“For information on you.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. He never broke.”

“So you killed him?”

“Oh, yes. But I would have killed him anyway. He was mutilated by the end. It was… a dirty job.” He heaved a great sigh, still not looking away from the stars. “Are you alright? Have you used your point?” Harry had used his point three times during this conversation, and he did it again right then.

“Yes. Keep talking.”

“After you fled the Burrow, I had to wait a while to find out anything more about where you’d gone. If you were hurt, or if you had a safe place to go. You obliviated two Deatheaters on Tottenham Court Road.”

“I did.”

“The blonde one. Tall. That was Rowle. That was the man that wanted Draco.”

“I saw Malfoy casting the _cruciatus_ on him. For losing me.”

“Yes. I think he rather appreciated that. Rowle came very close to … assaulting him.”

“His face was bruised. Did you do that?”

“Yes.”

“What about his father?”

“Lucius? He has no power. He doesn’t even have a wand.” Finally, he did look back at Harry, and when he did, Harry saw that his eyelashes were clumped together. He wasn’t sure if that counted as crying, but if it did, he had never seen that before, either. “You destroyed it.”

“His wand?”

“From Hagrid’s motorbike, as you were falling. The Dark Lord tried to use it against you, but confronted with your power, it exploded.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But the Dark Lord was furious. Almost… afraid. He has Ollivander imprisoned. There is something about your wand that he does not understand. Or… about your magic, maybe.”

“I know he has Ollivander. I saw that, too. He looks bad.” Harry folded his hands in his lap and then looked down at them. “But… I don’t think that will be a problem, now. The twin cores. My wand is broken.”

“What?”

“On Christmas Eve we went to Godric’s Hollow, and… Nagini was there, waiting for me. She tried to trap me - to keep me still until He could come - but Hermione saved us. We only just escaped, but - my wand. It was hit with a blasting charm and it’s … ruined.”

“That’s why your _lumos_ was weak at the pool. That wand wasn’t yours.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“But… why do you even need a wand?”

“You know why.”

A silence.

“Because I left you.”

“Yeah.” Harry rubbed his eyes. 

“I’m here now, though,” Severus answered softly.

“Feels like you’re still gone.”

“I’m here.” Severus held out his hands, palm up in supplication, but did not otherwise move. “I’m here,” he repeated. “And whatever you decide, I’ll love you. If you hate me - if you never want to see me again - I will still love you. I’ll wait forever, even if you never change your mind. I said always and I meant it, and I still mean it, now. No matter what you decide, or what you say. I love you.”

Harry closed his eyes and turned his face away. There was a pressure in his chest that felt insurmountable, like his lungs had turned to stone. All the things he wanted to say. Every thought he’d had all these months. There was too much.

“Will you heal me?” he finally asked, still not opening his eyes. “I think Nagini bruised my ribs. And I - I cut my face on the window, when we jumped out to apparate. And - ” his voice wavered. “It hurts.”

There was a long pause.

“Shall I do it now?” 

Severus’ voice was low, and deep - almost a vibration in the air, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut harder against all the memories inside him. He did not speak. He just nodded, and kept his eyes closed as he heard Severus shift forward, and then felt a very tentative touch on his shoulder. The tip of his wand brushed Harry’s cheek where he’d been cut, and there was a tremor of magic in his skin as the gash closed. Then Severus’ hands shifted, moving to his jaw to expose the mark around his neck, and then again to his arms, lifting them each in turn, healing bruises, and scrapes, and the punctures left by Nagini’s fangs. 

“Those may scar,” Severus said quietly, and then, in that same tone, “may I?” 

Harry raised his arms to allow his shirt to be drawn over his head, and as his skin was exposed, he heard a sharp intake of breath. He knew how he looked, of course, though there was no mirror in the tent’s little bathroom. He knew he looked starved, and wounded, and beaten. But Severus did not comment. He just healed the bruises on his back, and sides, and ribs, and then the livid red burn the locket had left on his chest, and when he was done, he laid Harry’s shirt back into his hands and stood back. Harry could hear his footfalls on the incongruous carpet, and still did not open his eyes.

“I want you to go, now,” he whispered. 

“Harry - ”

“Go. Please.”

Severus did not speak, and for a moment Harry was so sure he was going to try to touch him again that he almost shyed back. But no contact came, and when there was a disturbance in the air, he knew it was safe to look. 

The cleared shelter was empty. Well, not totally empty. Severus had left his cloak behind, neatly folded on the ground, with the jar of salve on top. 

***

Severus burst into the Headmaster’s office so forcefully that the door rebounded against the wall and every single former Headmaster jumped in their frames. Even Phineas jolted against his background, though he very quickly recovered and pretended to be asleep again. 

“Severus!” Albus gasped. “What’s happened?”

Severus strode to stand directly in front of the portrait, his shoulders still dusted with snowflakes, and pointed into Dumbledore’s face. “If I could kill you again I would,” he snarled. “If you were alive right now I would _cut your throat.”_ Albus just scoffed. 

“How dramatic.”

“Dramatic? That’s pretty rich coming from _you.”_ Severus threw himself back into his chair. “Have you any idea what we’ve done to him? And his _friends._ They’re children!”

“You seemed to think he was a man last year.”

Severus sneered. “That’s _low.”_

“Focus on getting him to the end, Severus.”

He leapt back to his feet, bracing his hands on the desk and digging his fingernails in to keep himself from hurling the painting off the wall. “And just what the FUCK do you think I am focusing on?”

“Goodness,” the portrait of Armando Dippet gasped indignantly.

“Why, your loss, of course,” Dumbledore answered. “As you have been for months.”

_My loss? My LOSS?_

Severus let out a snarl of fury and swept Albus’ collection of obscure instruments to the floor, where they shattered and burst apart. “I hate you,” he hissed.

“Many do.” Severus dropped back into his chair, suddenly exhausted. “I take it you’ve been to see him. Is that it?”

“Yes, I have,” Severus said. “He let me heal his wounds.”

“Did he have many?”

Severus did not answer right away. He needed to gather his scorn. “Yes, he had many,” he slowly began. “Cracked ribs. A bite from a great snake. A _strangulation mark._ Bruises, abrasions, cuts and burns. And his broken heart, of course.” He crossed one ankle over his knee, vibrating with anger. “And he was _freezing.”_

“Still?”

“He was outside when he called me. In his nightclothes.”

“You certainly do upset him, don’t you?”

Severus bared his teeth in a miserable grin. “Yes, I certainly do. Well. He’s alive, since that’s all you care about. I thought you might appreciate hearing it.”

Albus steepled his fingers together. “You said he showed evidence of strangulation?”

“Yes,” Severus hissed. “A _necklace_ did that to him. A locket. I saw it happen. But I have a feeling I am not supposed to ask him.” He paused. “Or _you.”_

“No, you mustn’t,” Albus answered, and then tapped his chin. “Pity he didn’t kill the snake.”

“Pity,” Severus answered, and stood up again. “I’m going to bed. I’ve repairs to do.”

After the door slammed shut behind him, Phineas opened his eyes.

“Albus?” he asked. 

“Yes, Phineas?”

“You have a heart of stone.”

“I’ve a war to win.”

  
  



	19. Start Over

Harry didn’t get back to the tent until past two in the morning. He’d been a little worried about leaving the protective dome out in the woods, as they weren’t supposed to leave any magical signatures behind, but when he breached the barrier it popped like the bubble it resembled and vanished, along with everything inside. The winter flooded in, and after the warmth of Severus’ magic, the cold outside felt even worse, and Harry was at once very grateful that Severus had left the cloak for him. He made his way back to his friends wrapped in it, and he curled up under it in his bunk, and there, surrounded by it’s familiar smell, he slept. And in his sleep, he dreamt of waking up alone in Severus’ bed, in his dark green sheets, and padding sleepily into the living room to find him there, bent over a pile of papers, scratching away with his quill. 

He dreamt of walking over to him, and breaking his concentration with a hand on his back. He dreamt of Severus’ smile - so rare - and the familiar timbre of his voice. 

_ “Good morning. How did you sleep?” _

It was so simple, and so sweet, and so out of reach, that when Harry woke up his face felt tight with dried tears, and for a moment he did not know where he was, but only that he was not where he was meant to be. There was a weird tapping sound, and the rustle of book pages, and he opened his eyes to canvas over his head.

The tent, with Hermione and Ron. He was in the tent. 

He sat up.

“Oh!” Hermione gasped, dropping her book. The tapping stopped too, and Ron looked around. “Good morning!”

“What time is it?” Harry asked. 

“Late,” Hermione said. “I’m not sure. You seemed like you needed to sleep.” Her eyes flicked over him. “You’re all… better.” Harry rubbed a hand absently across his neck and looked down at the black cloak wrapped around him. “Was Professor Snape here?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I called him. I had some questions. And… he healed me.”

Ron and Hermione looked at each other for a moment before Hermione seemed to remember she wasn’t speaking to him and looked away. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Did he tell you anything new?”

Harry couldn’t tell them anything that Severus had said the night before. Not any of it. Even Scrimgeour… they didn’t need to know that. Harry didn’t really even want to know that. 

“He said he wasn’t at the Burrow the night of the wedding,” he said. “He was at the Ministry. And… he told me that I destroyed Lucius Malfoy’s wand the night I left Privet Drive.”

“Did he say anything else about my family?” Ron asked.

“No. But I’m sure he would have if anything had happened to them. What are you doing with that wireless?” Harry slid down from his bunk, keeping the cloak around himself, to see what Ron was up to.

“Oh, there’s a program. It’s brilliant! Only… I missed the last one and there’s a password you need to tune in.” He frowned, and started tapping again. “It tells the news the way it really is. All the others are on You Know Who’s side and are following the Ministry line, but this one… you wait till you hear it. Only they can’t do it every day, they have to keep changing locations in case they’re raided.” He threw Hermione a covert glance as she sniffed and put her nose back in her book, and dropped his voice. “It’s called Potterwatch.”

***

Nearly a week passed with very little word. Severus got the impression that Harry needed space, so he did not push, though he did say good morning to him each day before leaving his rooms, and sometimes Harry answered in kind, and sometimes he didn’t. But that was alright. He was healed, and he wasn’t starving anymore, and he’d even let Severus touch him, at least a little. It was on the fifth day, then, that Severus asked to return. He certainly hadn’t brought them a full week’s worth of food, and he wasn’t going to let Harry’s stubbornness get in the way of his nourishment.

“You must be nearly out of provisions,” he sent that evening, tapping his foot a little in apprehension. “Might you permit me to return with more?”

_ [We are out of food] _ Harry answered.  _ [But, you know Ron and Hermione are here, right?]  _ a pause.  _ [It isn’t just me] _

“Yes, I know. Will you call?”

There was a prolonged silence, and Severus wondered if Harry was conferring with his friends. 

Finally,  _ [Fine]  _ appeared, followed by, _ [Ron wants to know if you can bring more scones. He says they were really good] _

Severus accepted Harry’s summons at seven that evening, and when he appeared, found himself right in the center of their magical shelter, surrounded by the three of them. It felt rather like an ambush. He cleared his throat. 

“Good evening,” he said, holding out the parcel he’d brought. Harry wasn’t looking at him, so he offered it to Ron, instead. “Courtesy of the Hogwarts kitchens.”

“Thanks, mate,” Ron answered cheerfully, taking it from his hands. “Make yourself at home.” Hermione snorted. “What?” he asked. “I mean. We’re friends now, right? Or… y’know. Allies. Or whatever.” He turned red, and looked back at Snape. “I broke Lupin’s jaw. Tell him, Harry.” He turned on his heel, retreating into the kitchen, and Severus raised his eyebrows.

“Did he?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, shifting awkwardly on his feet. “Or… punched him, at least.”

“Nah, it was broken,” Ron called back. “I felt a crack!”

Severus searched Harry’s eyes. “Can I ask questions?”

“No,” Harry said. 

Hermione looked at the floor, and then the ceiling, like she wished she could retreat to the kitchen, too, but was not willing to go anywhere near Ron. Harry’d told Severus that she was angry at Mr. Weasley, and she certainly did seem to be. Harry and Hermione, the two abandoned lovers. Severus didn’t really like that idea.

“You can sit down, though,” Harry continued, pointing to one of their camping chairs, and Severus obeyed him, and sat. He saw Harry’s eyes flick to the floor at his feet as he crossed his legs, and then back up to his face, and then away.

“I brought a bottle of wine, if you’d like it,” Severus said carefully. 

Harry scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I dunno if it’s smart to get drunk. Since we’re running for our lives and everything.” 

Ron reappeared almost immediately with the bottle and four glasses. “Don’t have to get drunk,” he said, and floated the lot over to Severus. “Pour, why don’t you?” 

Severus took them from him with a little furrow in his brow. “He’s quite different now, isn’t he?”

“Aren’t we all,” Harry muttered. 

Hermione looked like she was struggling internally with something. “Why don’t I… go… help Ron with the food,” she finally squeaked, and scurried out of the living room. Harry laughed despite himself.

“They know, don’t they?” Severus asked, watching her flee, and Harry sat down in the chair beside him.

“Oh, yeah.” He rubbed his forehead. “They know.”

“And … are they…” Severus trailed off.

“Are they ok with it?” Harry supplied. “I mean. I guess. Not like I’m in your lap or anything.” He grinned a little as he said it, but it fell almost immediately into a confused sort of scowl. Then, the tips of his ears turned pink, and he looked at his hands. Severus looked down at his hands, too, and then the floor, and the whorl of hair at the crown of his head, and then took up the wine, and uncorked it.

He’d resolved not to stare before he came, but was failing rather badly. For even with Harry like this - thin, and wan, and angry, and rather unkempt - he was still so incredibly lovely that it made Severus feel like he was dreaming. Like he was asleep in the dungeons, and this was the only opportunity he’d ever get to take in as much of Harry’s beauty as he could, because when he woke up he was going to be alone, with nothing but silence on his wrist, as had been his life since the end of June. 

He poured the wine, keeping his hand steady, and then cleared his throat.

“Wine?” he asked, offering Harry the glass. 

Harry didn’t take it. Instead, he glared at Severus’ fingers, wrapped around the goblet, and said, “I don’t like you like this.” 

Severus swallowed. That could mean anything, couldn’t it? Severus was a lot of things, and Harry didn’t seem to like many of them, just now. 

“Like what?” he asked, hoping against hope that whatever came out of his mouth next wouldn’t be too painful.

“All… guilty.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t too bad, he supposed. He  _ was _ guilty. At least Harry hadn’t said, ‘here,’ or ‘looking at me,’ or something like that.  _ Guilty _ was a pretty generous accusation, really. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it.” He tilted the wine a little towards him. “Go on.” Harry hesitated, but then took it, and scowled down into its ruby-red depths. Severus just watched, wondering if he was going to explode into fury, but before Harry could say anything at all, Ron returned to the living room with a steaming platter.

“Pork chops! My favorite!” he said. “You’re a godsend, Snape! Merlin, never thought I’d say that. Ha! Madness.” He put the food down on the side table and returned to the kitchen for cutlery. 

There was a dour silence.

“Trying to get in good with my friends, are you?” Harry muttered.

“Oh, yes,” Severus answered evenly. “There should be a chocolate gateau in there as well. With Raspberries. And the scones, of course.”

“You spoil me.”

“If you ever give me the chance, I certainly shall.” Harry tossed his head and gave a light little scoff. 

_ Lord give me the strength not to try to touch him. Look at him. God. _

He almost folded immediately - almost just reached out to touch his hand, even though he  _ knew _ Harry wouldn’t like it - but just before his self control snapped, Hermione and Ron returned with the place settings and the rest of the food, and the moment passed. He exhaled slowly, feeling like a schoolboy, and took up the bottle to pour for them.

“Are you eating, Professor Snape?” Hermione asked nervously, magically enlarging the little table to fit the four of them.

“No,” he answered, sliding the drinks across to Hermione and Ron. “I have access to a normal supply of food. This is for you. And it will be easier to interrogate me if my mouth is not full, of course.” Harry kicked him in the leg with his bare foot.

“Don’t be weird,” he said. 

Hermione giggled uncomfortably, and sat, and then Ron did, too.

“Cheers,” Ron said, raising his glass with a small nod at Severus. Ronald Weasley, at least, seemed happy to see him. Solidarity of the deserters, he supposed. 

Watching them eat, Severus wondered if he should have brought more food. He’d brought quite a lot, but Hermione was just as thin as Harry, and Ron looked only marginally better, and the three of them were absolutely ravenous. After so many weeks of near-starvation, it would certainly take them a while to recover. He wondered where Ron had gone when he left. Not Hogwarts, obviously, but somewhere with a kitchen, at least. He’d probably find out later, whenever Harry decided he could ask questions. So, instead of trying to ask anything at all, he just watched them eat - watched Harry, mostly - and sipped at his wine, and replayed that little kick in the leg. He wouldn’t have thought a childish gesture like that could ever feel so meaningful, but that one had felt like a touch from the hand of God, and for the first time in months he felt a tiny spark of hope ignite deep inside him. If he could just withhold his usual venom for this dinner, if he could just be polite to Harry’s friends, maybe he’d be allowed a little affection - a little tenderness - before he had to go. That would be… well, better not get his hopes too high.

_ He’s eating your food. That is good enough. _

They questioned him thoroughly, and he told them as much as he could. He spoke at length about the Dark Lord’s plans, and the state of the Wizarding World in general, and the price on Harry’s head, and the Ministry, and the muggle-born registration still in full force. He told them about the Carrows, and about his alliance with Peeves, though he was aware even as he said it that it was a transparent bid to get into Hermione and Ron’s good graces, and that Harry would certainly see through it. And Harry did see through it, and he rolled his eyes.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” he asked. “Interfering with them like that?”

“Certainly,” Severus answered. “But Amycus hurt you, and this is the worst I can do to him just now.” He said that on purpose, too, and Harry blushed, which was what he was hoping for. 

He told them about the taboo, and the roving bands of snatchers, which they already knew, and about some of the Order Members that had nearly been caught. He told them about The Dark Lord abroad, and the various rebellions at the school.

“Dumbledore’s army is in full force. It’s been quite irritating.”

“Are they still calling themselves that?” Ron asked. “Ballsy.”

“Oh, yes, there has been a great quantity of rude graffiti.”

“Ha.”

“Your sister is quite the firebrand, too,” Severus continued. “when I caught her with the sword, she called me a filthy traitor with half the bollocks of a pygmy puff.” Immediately, Ron inhaled a bite of cake and started coughing violently, and Harry burst out laughing so hard he dropped his forehead onto the table. Hermione just looked at Ron coughing, and at Harry laughing, and then at Snape sitting there impassively, and drained her glass in one swallow. Then, she held it out for more. Severus obliged her, and cast a refilling charm on the bottle. “And how are you?” he asked.

“Oh…” she giggled weakly again. “I suppose I’m alright. This is just quite… new.”

“Merlin,” Ron gasped, wiping his eyes. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill her for that.”

Severus looked at Harry, still wheezing with mirth. Laughing, because of something he’d said. What a gift. “Harry likes her. I understand she’s quite a good Chaser.” 

“Wow. You must really love him,” Ron chuckled, leaning back in his seat and patting his full stomach. 

“I do,” Severus answered solemnly. It felt good to just say it like that. It really did. Even though Harry stopped laughing immediately, and then Ron did, too, and Hermione’s uncomfortable giggling increased. “But it’s a secret, of course. Take it to the grave.”

“Right. Ahem. Well,” Ron began, “I have a question.” He looked sideways at Harry and then back at Snape. “What the fuck did you make me go into that frozen pond for? Honestly.” Severus let out a single bark of laughter. “What? It was cold! Couldn’t you have just handed it to us? Hell.”

“I do apologize for that,” he said. “But that can be laid at the feet of your former Headmaster.”

“PFF,” Ron said. “What, is his portrait telling you what to do?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Oh, shit. Is he pissed off that you killed him?”

“Ron!” Hermione gasped.

“What? He did!”

“No, it’s alright,” Severus answered, looking at Harry. “You told them?”

“Yeah.”

“I think he was rather pleased at how quick it was, though he is slightly less pleased at my generally mutinous attitude, these days.”

“Mutinous,” Harry muttered. 

“I quite screamed at him for the stunt with the sword.” Severus paused, remembering smashing all of Dumbledore’s heirlooms in a fit of hostile misery. “I was mid-tirade when you first spoke to me, Harry.” 

“Were you? What did I say?”

“Oh… mostly that you were tired.”

***

Once Severus had exhausted all their questions and it was time to go, Harry wrapped himself in the cloak, and they walked together out onto a barren plateau. Outside the tent, Severus looked around, a little startled. He hadn’t any idea where they were, of course, as the bracelets required no knowledge of location, but somehow he hadn’t expected such a dramatic, windswept vista. He hoped Hermione’s protective charms were strong enough. A little magical tent out on this tundra would act like a beacon. But he supposed they’d managed to stay alive and undiscovered this long, so he let it pass. 

At the very edge of their wards, just where apparition would become possible, he turned to look at Harry standing there in the empty wilderness, and immediately gave up any pretense of not staring at him. His eyes were bright in the pale moonlight under his shock of unruly hair, and Severus’ cloak was far too big for him. It reminded him of how Harry’d looked in his robes that last morning at Headquarters. Harry, wearing his clothes. 

_ Mine. _

That little voice in his head had gotten pretty quiet, but it wasn’t gone. Just chastened. Crushed into submission. Or, at least, Severus was in the process of crushing it, for now that they were no longer within eyesight of the others, the urge to touch him returned with a vengeance. It was so strong, in fact, that Severus put his hands in his pockets to try to control it, and Harry watched him do it like he knew that was why.

“So,” Harry said slowly. “You’re going, now.”

“Yes,” Severus answered. “But I can come back in a few days. Bring you more food. And… news.”

Harry just shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. He looked exhausted, and conflicted, and terribly sad. Severus had done that to him, of course. Severus had broken his heart right in two, and no amount of food would fix that. No amount of  _ news.  _ Only time, and patience, and self-control could so much as stop the bleeding.

“Will you allow me one question?” Severus asked. 

“Fine.”

_ May I kiss you? No, don’t say that. Say something else.  _

“How is your field?” 

Harry’s mouth twisted, and Severus immediately knew that he was about to lie. He could see it in his eyes. The field was gone. Or… he could not access it. Or… he chose not to. Or something. Something was wrong with it, and he was about to lie.

“My field?” Harry repeated slowly. “It’s… fine.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I still spend a lot of time there. When I can’t sleep. But…” He stopped, and looked at his shoes. “It’s fine.” 

“Is it?”  _ Leave it. You can ask again later. _

“Yeah. It is. Severus?” he looked back up, hesitated, and then sighed. “I wish…” 

Severus wished, too. For hundreds of things. Thousands. He took a half-step forward, and then stopped himself.  _ Slow. Patient. Don’t push.  _ “As do I.” 

“What do you wish for?” 

“Well…” Severus looked over his head towards the tent, glowing faintly blue. “I suppose I wish I could take you away.”

“That’s too big,” Harry said softly. “Something smaller.”

“Then… I wish I’d had the courage to speak sooner. August. Or… your birthday.”

_ Marry me. _

Harry scrunched up his face. “Smaller,” he said. 

Severus’ hands were burning with the need to touch him, now, like he’d stuck them in hot wax, and his fingers flexed and then curled into fists in his pockets.  _ Just ask. Ask him if you can touch him. If you can kiss him. Look at him. He wants you to touch him. He needs you. Ask him. _

“Harry.”  _ If he says no, you can just leave, and give him his space, and wait longer. No harm done, if he says no. Asking isn’t pushing, and if you don’t ask he won’t ever say yes, will he? Ask him. Say: Harry, may I kiss you? Say it. _

_ Coward. _

Harry frowned at him. “You can ask,” he said, his breath billowing out in the chill air, and Severus was struck again with that old fear - that Harry could see right into his soul. And maybe he could. That would be fair. “Go on.” 

For a long moment, Severus just looked back at him, wondering if he really was a coward. But then, finally, he forced the words out past his anxiety, and into the air. 

“May I kiss you?”

Harry didn’t answer, he just turned his face away, offering his cheek. So, Severus very hesitantly reached out his hands. 

Under his fingertips, Harry’s skin was quite cool, and Severus thought that maybe he should go back into the tent before he caught a chill. It was an odd, clinical sort of thought, like his brain was trying to keep him attached to reality - trying to keep him oriented in time and space, even though, right then, not a single fucking thing in the entire universe mattered other than the fact that Harry was allowing this. 

Severus kissed his cheek.

***

“Oh,” Hermione breathed, peeking out through a crack in the tent flap. 

“What?” Ron asked. “What?” She moved aside for him to see, and he looked out, too. “Oh.” He turned back towards her. “You  _ punched me  _ when I came back.”

“Did you bring  _ food?”  _ she hissed. “No. You didn’t bring  _ anything. _ Just that stupid radio.” She pulled the tent flap closed again, and stalked away. “Idiot.”

***

“I love you,” Severus whispered against his skin. “Do you believe me?” 

Harry inhaled like he’d been stuck with a pin, and held it in for a long moment. Then, very slowly, just the way Severus had taught him, he exhaled. 

“Are we starting over?” he finally asked, and the words were hot where his breath touched Severus’ ear. “It feels like we are.”

“Would that we could be so lucky,” Severus answered, hesitating only a moment before giving in to a longing that had been torturing him for six endless, awful months, and stroking his fingertips into Harry’s black hair. It was long, past his ears, and still just as soft as it had been in the boy’s bathroom, that last night. He closed his eyes. “I could undo all my mistakes. I could…” he broke off. The thought was too painful. There had been so many mistakes, right from the very beginning.

“I don’t want to start over.”

“What do you want?”

Harry sighed again, and stepped back, and Severus let him. “Nothing I can have,” he said, and looked back to the tent. “You should go.”

“If I could stay, I would.”

“You can’t, though.”

“No. I can’t.” Severus raked his hand through his own hair, wanting to banish the memory of Harry’s skin now that he could no longer feel it. “Harry,” he said again. “Do you believe me?”

Harry looked back at him with his small, sad smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.” 

He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t turn away, either, so Severus reached for his hand, and very gently brushed his knuckles across the scars there. 

_ I must not tell lies. _

“That’s more than I could have hoped for,” he said, withdrew, and turned on the spot.

***

_ [Wounded] _ appeared on Severus’ wrist a few days later, and he read it aloud to Albus’ portrait before touching his wand to the surface.

“What happened?”

_ [Not me. The others. Will you come?] _

“Yes. Let me get some supplies. Can they wait a few minutes?”

_ [Yes. Bleeding isn’t too bad. Mostly burns] _

When Severus arrived with another tub of salve, a case of healing draughts, and a parcel of food, it became clear that Ron had gotten the brunt of it. His legs were mangled and his face was burned. They had obviously put dittany on his wounds to staunch the bleeding, but that was not going to be enough. As for Hermione, her hands were blistered on the backs like she’d covered her face, and she was badly bruised, but Harry seemed relatively unhurt. Severus tended to Ron, first.

“What exploded?” he asked, siphoning the blood off of Ron’s legs and casting a cleaning charm over him.

“Erumpent Horn,” Hermione said shortly. “Didn’t I tell him? Didn’t I tell him it would explode? Merlin’s  _ pants.”  _ Harry took the salve from Severus’ hands and started dabbing it onto her burns. 

“The Deatheaters have Luna,” he said as he worked. “Xenophilius tried to give me up to get her back.”

“Xenophilius Lovegood?” Severus asked. He’d last seen Luna leaving the school for Christmas. She must have been taken right off the train. He hoped she hadn’t been killed, though she might have been. Many had, and The Quibbler was the last publication still supporting the resistance. “Why in Merlin’s name did you contact Xenophilius Lovegood?”

“LOOOOONG story, mate,” Ron said, looking down at his legs as the wounds slowly knitted under Severus’ wand. “Cool.”

“It’s not that long,” Hermione said, annoyed, and launched into the story. She told Severus about the book Dumbledore left her in his will, and the mark, and the letter to Grindelwald, and what Xenophilius told them about the Deathly Hallows. Harry stayed quiet all through her explanation, and he didn’t speak up until she scoffed angrily. “Magic objects given by  _ death?  _ Honestly. What a joke.”

“I don’t think it’s a joke. I think it’s real.”

“Harry  _ come on,”  _ Hermione answered, pulling her hands back from him and examining the healing skin. “We can’t go off hunting some silly myth! We have very specific instructions.”

Harry turned to look at Severus. “Do you know about the Hallows?” he asked. Severus glanced between the two of them, thinking that Harry seemed rather… tense. 

“The Deathly Hallows?” he asked. “Yes, I’m familiar. There’s a children’s story. The Tale of Three Brothers, isn’t that right? It’s a morality tale.”

“Told you,” Hermione said. Harry stood up and started pacing around the room.

“Harry,” Severus said warningly while he finished with Ron’s face. “Your trigger point.”

“I’m fine,” Harry shot back. “I’m not upset.” He was, though. Visibly.

“Thanks,” Ron said, extending his healed legs. “Good as new. Tea?”

“Yes, please,” Severus answered. “One for Harry, too.”

“I don’t want  _ tea.”  _ He stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest. “The Chamber of Secrets was supposed to be a myth, too, and that was real, wasn’t it? Why can’t this be the same? We’re magical for Merlin’s sake. The way I grew up  _ all of this _ is a crazy myth. Fucking  _ birthday presents  _ were a myth in my house.”

“Harry, please,” Hermione interrupted. “Don’t let mad old Xenophilius Lovegood distract you from the - ”

“NO!” Severus barked.

Hermione shrieked in terror and there was a crash from the kitchen.

“Holy hell!” came Ron’s voice. “I think I just had a flashback!”

Harry just looked annoyed. “Severus isn’t supposed to know what we’re doing,” he said. It wasn’t a question.  _ “Still.” _

“No, I am not,” Severus answered. “Albus has forbidden me to ask, and you must not say. My apologies for startling you, Miss Granger.”

“Oh,” Hermione gasped, clutching her heart. “That’s - that’s ok. I think I knew that. Sorry.”

Harry gave Severus an unkind smile. “We obey the Headmaster, don’t we? Even though he’s  _ dead.  _ I figured that was why you haven’t tried to weasel it out of me yet.”

What Severus wanted to say was,  _ I have never tried to weasel anything out of you, Potter.  _ But he didn’t say that. Instead, he just said, “as usual, you see right through me.” 

Harry ignored him, and rolled his eyes, and Severus wondered how visible his fight for restraint was. To Harry, probably quite visible. Unbidden, in his mind, he heard Harry’s voice - snide, accusing -  _ ‘practicing our self control, are we?’  _ And before that, from the floor of Grimmauld Place -  _ ‘should. Supposed to.’  _

He hadn’t had much occasion to experience Harry’s scorn recently. It… reminded him of things. 

He shifted uncomfortably.

_ Wizard Prince.  _

“So you don’t think they’re real?” Harry continued. “The Hallows, I mean.”

“No,” Severus answered. Harry’s expression was inscrutable, but Severus had seen that sort of blank look on his face before, too. He was trying to moderate his emotions. Fear, or pain, or anger. Was it the brush with the Deatheaters that had upset him? It didn’t seem to be. He’d reacted to Hermione’s recounting of their escape with perfect equanimity, though they all could have died. It was the Hallows, then. But why should Harry care so much about an old fairytale? Severus wondered. What had his mother told him when he was a child? Three brothers, three objects, given by death. And, in the tale, all of the brothers had died, in the end. But there was something else, wasn’t there? Something about bringing all three objects together. The stone, the wand, and the cloak.

A little finger of dread touched his heart. Master of Death, wasn’t that it? Severus would like Harry to be the Master of Death, too. What a lot of terrible problems that would solve. 

“Harry.”

Harry scowled, and waved back the tea Ron offered him. “What about my cloak?” he asked sharply. “What if that’s a Hallow? I mean, it could be. I’ve heard other invisibility cloaks aren’t half as good as mine. And - ” he stopped. “Dumbledore left me something. In his will. A snitch.”

“A snitch?”

“Yeah.” Harry pulled out his mokeskin pouch and withdrew the little golden ball. “It won’t open, but I think the stone is in there. The Resurrection Stone. I think it was set in that cursed ring, and Dumbledore put it in here.”

“What?” Severus asked. Harry pressed his lips to the snitch and then tossed it to him.  _ “I open at the close?” _ he read. “What does that mean?”

“Like I know,” Harry spat. “Dumbledore never told me a goddamn thing. He didn’t even tell me his family was buried in Godric’s Hollow.”

“What?” Severus asked again. 

“Oh, you didn’t know that either?”

“No…” Severus said slowly. “I didn’t. His family?”

“Yeah. His mother and his sister. Haven’t you read Rita Skeeter’s book? I saw the graves. I saw them. They were only - only - ” he started to pace again, ran one hand through his hair, and then clutched his own arms. “They were only a few rows away from my parents and he never told me. He never even - ” He stopped, turned around, and walked right out of the tent. Severus watched him go, and then looked over to Hermione, who grimaced and flapped her hands at him. 

So, he went out, too.

  
  



	20. Master of Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my beloved readers. This chapter and the next are a reward for getting through 50k words of awful agony. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> p.s. please don't be alarmed at the change in total chapters. I've decided to break this into a fourth part. :>

“Harry!” Severus called, looking around. “Where are you going?” They were in an open field, with frost-tipped, leafless brambles at their feet. Did Harry have shoes on? “Harry, wait!” Severus had to jog to catch up to him. And, no, he didn’t have shoes on. He was never dressed properly when he stormed out in a huff. “Wait.” Severus grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a stop. Harry whirled around. 

“Get OFF,” he snarled, jerking his arm back. Severus opened his hands, startled.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” he said. “Why are you angry?”

“Why?” Harry sneered. “Oh, I dunno. Maybe because none of this makes any fucking sense? Dumbledore gave Hermione that book with the sign of the Hallows. He gave me that snitch with no explanation. He left me this impossible job - and - NO I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU BY ACCIDENT SO BE QUIET!” He paused for breath and dug his thumb into his wrist. “And - and - I have a Hallow. I _know_ I do. I might have _two -_ and - on my parent’s graves it said… it said… _‘the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’_ The cloak was _his._ My father. James. It belonged to him. Dumbledore told me. Maybe he _knew._ And if I have two, and I found the third - If I could get the _wand_ \- maybe… I could…” he trailed off, and then looked at Severus like he could see right through him. “Oh.” 

“What?” Severus asked, alarmed by his sudden silence. Some sort of terrifying intuitive leap had just occurred, he was sure. And that was usually… not good.

“The Wand. Oh.”

“What? What wand?” 

Harry refocused on him. “The Elder Wand. The _unbeatable wand._ That’s what he’s after. The Dark Lord. He wasn’t trying to get Ollivander to make a _new_ wand. He’s trying to find an old one. So… he can…” He searched Severus’ eyes, and then turned his back and looked out over the forbidding landscape. “He doesn’t know my wand is broken.”

“No,” Severus answered. “He doesn’t.”

“He thinks the twin cores will still protect me.”

“Yes.”

“But they won’t.”

Severus moved to stand beside him. What was this nonsense about the twin cores? Harry hadn’t ever spoken of it before. Severus knew about it, of course - the Dark Lord was enraged the first time their wands connected in that way - but Harry… this wand fixation was new, and he didn’t like it. It was like he’d forgotten who he was. What could Severus say?

“I am not as well-versed in wand lore as Ollivander, Harry,” he began. “But even he does not understand what your wand did the night you were moved. There was no matching core for you to link to. No Phoenix feather. Lucius’ wand is Dragon Heartstring, yet still, you destroyed it. _Incinerated_ it.” He paused, wondering if Harry would allow any physical contact. If he would take comfort, or refuse it. Harry had never been so hard to read as he was now. “No one knows how it happened. No expert. No scholar. No one. The Dark Lord has scoured the earth for answers with no success. It remains a mystery to him.” Severus, for his part, wanted to touch him very badly. He was almost _tingling_ with it. “But He doesn’t know what we know. He doesn’t know what you’re capable of.” Harry scoffed, and Severus stepped a little closer. Harry did not move away. That was promising. “After everything you’ve done… all the power inside you… what difference could a wand make? Next to you - to your magic - the twin cores are nothing but a curiosity. Surely you know that.”

Harry just stared out over the landscape. 

“No one believes me that my wand saved me on it’s own,” he finally said, and Severus wondered if he was listening at all. “They think I did it on purpose. That I made that light come out, but I didn’t. It was my _wand._ I don’t even know how to do that. I don’t even know what spell it was.” He rubbed his eyes, and then leaned in just enough for their shoulders to brush together. 

Severus held his breath. 

It was the simplest touch possible, but even so, it felt like a moment in spun glass. Every time Harry touched him, now, it felt like that, and Severus hesitated before wrapping one arm around him, afraid he might somehow shatter whatever had prompted this contact. It was impossible to tell what touch, what word, might make him suddenly withdraw. But Harry didn’t shy away from his hand, so Severus pressed on.

“Did you know how to call flowers out of winter before you did it?” he asked. “Do you even know how to, now?” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harry’s brow furrow.

“That’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

Severus sighed, trying to withhold his frustration. Why did Harry think it was his wand? Didn’t he remember how powerful he was? Didn’t he remember filling Severus’ rooms with flowers? Drenching the grounds with rain? All the things he’d done… that _they_ had done together… didn’t he remember?

“Harry…” Severus began carefully, but Harry interrupted him.

“My magic is gone,” he said, pulling away. “Stop asking me.” He took a few steps and then sat down in the dirt, and Severus followed, and sat beside him. 

“Have you even tried? Since I…”

“Left?” Harry interjected bitterly. “Yeah, I have.”

Such venom. Severus did not respond in kind. He kept his voice even, and calm. “And what happens when you try?”

“Nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing comes, nothing moves, _nothing changes._ It’s. GONE.” He gave a shudder of misery and hugged his knees, and for a long moment he just stared unseeingly at the frigid ground under his bare, lacerated feet. “I think I used it all up,” he finally said. “That night. Out in the grounds. I think I used it all.”

Severus remembered it very vividly. The explosion of sparks, and the rain, and the way he’d slumped sideways, unconscious. That had been a lot of magic, true, but not _all of it._ Even if Harry had riven the earth in two, it wouldn’t have been all his magic. There was no such thing. 

“Magic is not a finite resource,” Severus answered, and when he moved to lay a hand on Harry’s back, Harry shrugged it off.

“I thought you said _no one knows.”_ His voice was cold, almost hostile, and his body seemed to draw in, like he was trying to make himself smaller.

 _Fear._ Severus thought. _This is fear. Don’t get angry._

It took a moment to control, but control it he did, and he didn’t speak right away, either. Instead, he just sat there beside Harry on the cold ground, thinking. 

If this had happened in May, Harry would have been on his knees begging for brutality. The switch. The belt. The cane. Or worse. But then, of course, if Severus hadn’t left him in the first place, his magic would still be strong. But Severus had left him. Severus had broken his trust. Taken his safety net. So… what to do?

He’d resolved to be patient, and composed. To build back what he’d damaged, no matter how long it took. But there was a second impulse inside him now, too. The impulse to seize Harry’s shoulders. Shake him, slap him, pin him to the ground, and demand that he stop being so fucking _stubborn._ Demand that he admit that his magic wasn’t in his wand, or any wand, but in his _soul._ His _bones._ Whatever mad nonsense Xenophilious Lovegood had put into his head, it had obviously come at just the right moment - just when Harry was most vulnerable to any feeble hope that something external could unlock his magic.

It was so irrational. Harry hadn’t ‘used up’ anything. He was a bottomless well of magical power. Even now, he was using the bracelets with no wand, and going into his magic with no wand. He was still the same extraordinary boy he’d always been. Why was he so convinced he was weak?

He looked at Harry’s cheek, and the tips of his hair brushing his forehead and over his ears. He was the same boy. Maybe Severus _should_ try to force him. Just grab him, look into his eyes and demand he create, like he had out in the snow. Just _make him_ do it. 

He imagined doing it right then. Imagined just… dragging it out of him.

But… Grab him? Shock him? _Force_ him? When Harry didn’t want him to do it? 

No.

He would just have to wait, that was all. Just wait.

He took a deep breath.

“Your feet are bleeding,” he finally said. “Will you let me take you back inside?” 

Harry’s shoulders relaxed minutely. “Yeah, ok.” 

Severus took him back inside.

***

Back at school, he tried to ask Albus what in God’s name he meant by his bizarre clues. Why the children’s book? And what about Harry’s cloak? And that snitch? What was he playing at? But Albus was not interested in answering any of his questions, or listening to anything Severus had to say about the Hallows. Instead, the painted bastard just told him to mind his own business, and Severus shouted at him for muddying the waters with his opaque fucking _gifts,_ and Albus told him to go protect the students and to trust Harry’s instincts. 

“I do!” Severus said, exasperated, even though right then he rather didn’t.

“Then leave him be!”

“FINE. Where’s Amycus? I want to flood his office.”

***

It took Hermione three weeks to decide that Harry needed a reality check, and a further two to realize that she was going to have to be the one to give it to him. For after the incident at the Lovegood’s, Harry started spending a lot of time in his meditation - a truly _disturbing_ amount of time, as far as Hermione was concerned - and when he wasn’t doing that, all he wanted to talk about were the Hallows. But that wasn’t what really bothered her. The crowning madness was how he was treating Professor Snape.

At first, she thought maybe Harry just felt shy because she and Ron were there - that he was worried they’d react badly, or judge him, or something - but after a while, she stopped thinking that. It didn’t seem to be shyness, or fear, or even anger. It was… a wall. Or maybe more like a pane of security glass. For Harry was not allowing Professor Snape to touch him hardly at all, and the way Snape looked at him… _stared_ at him… his distance seemed almost cruel. Like he was doing it on purpose.

Ron did not seem bothered by it. He didn’t seem to expect Harry to act affectionate towards Snape at all, but that was because Ron was a dolt. Hermione, though, was not a _dolt,_ and she did expect it _._ She’d witnessed Harry’s grief while they were separated, and his reaction to the flower, and that kiss on the cheek, out on the plateau. That kiss had been more than affectionate. That had been _tender,_ and she had never in her life seen Professor Snape look so soft, or so incredibly afraid. 

They were lovers. She knew it absolutely, even if she didn’t know how in Merlin’s name that had happened in the first place. They were lovers, and Ron could pretend all he wanted that it wasn’t completely fucking _obvious,_ but it was. 

Harry himself had told them, with his own mouth, that Snape loved him, and that he loved Snape, _‘more than anything.’_ And his tears, good God, the way he’d cried in the hospital wing when she took off his bracelet, and after finding the yarrow. That was grief of a kind Hermione had never seen before in her life. So, what was Harry doing, pushing Snape away like this, after all that? Yes, Snape fled the school. Yes, Snape killed Dumbledore. So what? Hadn’t he explained himself? Unless he’d done something else awful that she didn’t know about, Harry was acting irrational. And the Hallows. How stupid, to focus so hard on something that didn’t even exist, when what he’d been longing for all along was _right there._ Snape was right in front of his face, but all he wanted to talk about was the Elder Wand, like that could fill the void. 

Stupid.

She half expected Professor Snape to lose his patience before she did. She almost wanted him to. Snape had a temper, didn’t he? Why didn’t they fight? Why didn’t he push? Demand answers? If anyone could snap Harry out of his weird new obsession it was definitely Severus Snape. So, why in the world was he being so polite about being absolutely ignored? After their time at school, she rather expected him to explode each time Harry shrugged off his hand, or moved away from him, or said something rude and snotty. That was pretty much all Harry did, these days. Meditate, think about the Hallows, refuse affection, act like a brat, repeat. But Professor Snape did not explode. He didn’t even raise his voice. Not _once._

She supposed maybe it was that fear she’d seen. Maybe he was scared of driving Harry further away. Maybe he was prepared to wait as long as Harry wanted him to wait. But Hermione didn’t want to wait. She wanted Harry to go back to normal, and by that point, she was pretty sure there was only one way to accomplish that. She even considered trying to get Snape alone for a private word - give him a nudge in the right direction - but in the end, she didn’t quite have the courage. So, instead, she did what she always did. She did some research, and thought about it, and turned it over in her mind. She read the passage on Yarrow again, and thought about love, and fidelity, and wounds, and war, and she thought about how she had never seen Snape look afraid before this thing with Harry, and wondered how he’d felt leading Harry to the sword, and then she had an idea so incredibly obvious that she gasped aloud.

“What?” Ron asked, looking up from a map of Albania, spread out on the table. Hermione covered her mouth and glanced at Harry sitting serenely on his bunk, but he didn’t stir.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I just… had an idea. Just an idea.” 

***

Harry toed his sneakers into the sand at his feet, and a little cluster of cactus roses appeared. He crouched down to look at them. They were kind of pretty, with their grey-green flesh and little spined tips. There were shiny black ones, too, and he made a few of those, and then stood back to inspect his work. 

He was getting better at creating in the desert. Severus even brought him a book on desert plants when he asked for one, and though Harry didn’t tell him why he wanted it, and Severus didn’t ask, he did look at Harry in a sad sort of way, which made Harry think maybe he knew. He usually did know that sort of thing. He knew Harry. Even though he was wrong about Harry’s magic.

Severus seemed to think that he could just _decide_ to have his intention magic back, but that was bullshit. It wouldn’t come, no matter how hard he _decided_ it should, or how many times Severus gazed balefully at him. He’d used it all up, and he just needed a new, more powerful wand. 

No way could he face down the Dark Lord the way he was now. If he tried, he would just die, and then Severus would die, and Ron, and Hermione, and everyone else would die, because his magic was fucking _gone._ No matter what Severus thought.

He sat down in the sand and looked out at the horizon. The sky was sort of yellow, here. It was nice. Nicer than the tent, at least. He picked up a stone and hurled it as far as he could. 

_Master of Death._

He just needed the wand. 

_Harry?_

He looked around. 

_Harry? Can I talk to you?_

He opened his eyes. It was Hermione. 

“What?” he asked. “I was busy.”

“Don’t you think you should take a break?” she said gently. “It’s been hours and hours.” 

Harry blinked. How long had he been under? “Oh. Sorry. I got… distracted.” His legs were stiff when he unfolded them, and he shook them out a little, flexing his toes. “What time is it?”

“Around six,” she answered. “We were going to eat pretty soon.” 

“Oh. Ok.” Harry reached automatically for the snitch sitting beside him on the bed, and Hermione looked askance at it. “What?” he asked, his hackles up immediately. She was always on him about the snitch. Like she thought it was evil or something. 

“Oh. Nothing,” Hermione answered, blushing a little. “I just had a question.”

“Fine, what is it?” He rolled the little golden ball in his fingers and looked down at it. If only it would open. That would be a step closer.

“Yes. Well. I was wondering. I mean, I was just looking over some of my old Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks, in case there’s anything useful in there, and…I was just thinking…”

“Hermione. _What is it?”_ If she wasn’t going to spit it out, he wanted to work on the snitch. That was more important, anyway. She frowned at him, and then at the snitch again, and he almost put it behind his back.

“I was just thinking about you, and Professor Snape… and how lucky it is that his Patronus is a doe… because you trusted it, even though you didn’t know it was him.” Now he thought she sounded kind of nervous, but he didn’t really care. He rolled the snitch between his palms, wishing it would open. _Stupid resurrection stone. Ugh._ “And… you know… it led you to the sword. Don’t you think that was lucky?”

“Yeah, that was lucky. What’s your question?” _Fucking snitch. God. Maybe I can use the sword to cut it open. That’s an idea..._

“Well,” she glanced over at Ron, who was pouring over his papers with a scowl of concentration on his face and balancing his deluminator on it’s edge. “I was just thinking about the two of you… and how you aren’t really letting him - I mean… I was wondering… does Professor Snape know what _your_ Patronus is?”

“Hm? My Patronus?” That finally caught his interest, and he looked up at her. “I don’t think so. Why?”

Hermione gave him a skeptical face. “What do you mean, why? Don’t you remember what was in our Defense Textbook about Patronus lore? Fifth year.” Harry raised his eyebrows. How Hermione could still be surprised about how much he didn’t read his textbooks, he had no idea. The suggestion that he should remember information by _year_ was obnoxious. She scoffed at him. “Honestly, Harry. Did you ever do your homework?”

“I’ve been kind of busy for my entire life, actually,” he shot back. “What Patronus lore?”

Now she looked annoyed, too, like he was being obtuse on purpose. “Go ahead and tell him what your Patronus is and see what he says.”

“Fine,” Harry answered. He touched the silver. 

_Severus?_ he sent. There was a short delay. 

_[Yes? Is everything alright?]_

_Yeah, everything’s fine. Hermione wants me to tell you what my Patronus is but she won’t say why._

_[Your Patronus?]_ appeared. _[Why? What is it?]_

_It’s a stag._

***

Severus spat his wine out all over the table.

***

There was a long silence, and Harry and Hermione both watched his bracelet. Nothing came. Harry touched it again. 

_Severus?_

Still nothing. “What did you just make me do?” he asked. Ron looked up from his maps. “Hermione. What did you just make me do?” he insisted.

“Just wait,” she said loftily. “You just wait.”

 _[Is it?]_ appeared on his wrist. 

“Yeah. Is that… bad?” Harry asked back. He glared at Hermione, who was looking down at his bracelet, too. “Hermione is making a face at me.”

“I am not!”

Ron came over to see what they were doing. “What’s up?” he asked, and they both ignored him.

 _[Harry]_ Severus sent.

“What?” He was starting to get kind of scared. Hermione grabbed his arm and touched her wand to the bracelet.

“This is Hermione just tell him,” she said all at once before Harry could pull his arm back. 

_[Let go of him]_ appeared, and she did, with a little gasp of fear. _[Did she?]_

“Yes, she did,” Harry answered shortly, standing up and walking over to the bunks. He stopped talking out loud. _And she isn’t reading this anymore. What is it?_

_[Tell her to mind her own business]_

“He says to mind your own business,” Harry called back over to where Hermione and Ron were standing in silence. 

“Tell him not to be a coward,” she said snidely.

“Jeez,” Ron said. 

“I’m not telling him that.” Harry looked back down at his wrist as it warmed again. 

“You’re soulmates, you thick prat.”

_[There is a legend]_

Harry looked back up. “What?” he asked. “What did you say?”

“Soulmates,” Hermione repeated, a little acidly. “You’d know that if you read your textbooks.”

More script began to appear on his wrist, line by line, as was usual when Severus had a lot to say.

_[Many believe that the form one’s Patronus takes reflects the deepest allegiances of the heart. One’s patronus can even change to match the beloved, if the love is strong enough, or there is an upheaval great enough. But there is a theory, in some circles, that to find a Witch or Wizard whose patronus matches your own from the outset is the rarest and most precious bond achievable in life]_

He read that, and then looked over at Hermione. 

“I’m right,” she said. He looked back down.

_[The missing other half, or so they say]_

Abruptly, Harry felt his brain reorient, and he sat down hard on the bottom bunk. 

_[Harry?]_

“But - our patronuses don’t match!” Ron said loudly.

“That’s because you’re an _arse,”_ Hermione hissed back. 

“Oi! Snape’s a way bigger arse than me! He killed Dumbledore, didn’t he?”

“Oh, right, like we don’t know _why.”_

“Doesn’t make him not an _arse!_ He’s been a huge arse since we met him!”

Severus was his soulmate. Of course he was. Of course. Harry had already known it. That was why his magic was gone. Severus had left him behind and never really come back. Severus was his other half. The missing piece of his life. And Severus was the source of his power, too. Dumbledore had practically told him that. Power the Dark Lord knows not? Love. Not a _wand._

_[Harry?]_

It was so obvious. The strength of their bond - to withstand so _much_ \- they were never supposed to be together. Everyone had tried to prevent it, even Severus himself. Severus was twenty years his senior. He was a Professor. He was a Deatheater. A liar. A brutal killer. He’d tortured the Minister of magic to _death._ He’d torn out Harry’s heart and put it back in _wrong,_ and after all that, Harry still loved him. Still _wanted him._ The most precious bond achievable in life? God. How could Severus have left him? And then let him stay so distant? 

What a fucking _idiot._

Harry stood up and walked outside. They were camping on the coast that night, on a narrow beach enclosed on all sides by high, sheer cliffs, and about six meters away from the tent, out on the sand, he closed his hand around his bracelet and said, _“Chimera.”_

Severus appeared almost immediately, dressed in his Headmaster’s robes, and spun around, looking for him. 

“Harry - ” He reached out, and Harry shoved him in the chest. 

“YOU!” he shouted. “ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU DIDN’T KNOW? THAT YOU COULDN’T FEEL IT? YOU. STUPID. GIT!”

“Wait - ” 

“WE COULD HAVE BEEN TOGETHER THIS WHOLE TIME! YOU ABSOLUTE _TOSSER!”_ Harry shoved him again, as hard as he could, screaming into his face. “MY SOULMATE? FUCK _YOU!”_

Ron and Hermione tumbled out of the tent. 

“Harry!” Hermione yelped. 

“OI!” Ron shouted. 

“Please - ” Severus tried, but Harry just grabbed the front of his robes and dug his forehead into his chest.

“SHUT UP!” he demanded. “I HATE YOU! GOD - YOU - _You - ”_ He broke off, growling incoherently, and then Severus’ arms came up around him, like he thought maybe that could contain his rage.

“You’ve said that before and didn’t mean it,” Severus said, his voice soft, and Harry clenched his hands into fists and let out another snarl of fury. He was not going to be _contained._ Nothing could contain him. _Nothing._ He was going to _explode._

“Yeah, well,” he sneered, lifting his head. “I don’t bloody well mean it now, either, do I?” He jerked Severus forward by the robes and kissed him. 

Hermione shrieked and started slapping at Ron. “Get back in the tent!” she squealed. “RON! _Get in the tent!”_ Ron just stood there, stunned, as Severus slammed Harry against the cliff face in furious passion. 

“But - Wha?” 

“GET. IN. THE TENT!” Hermione grabbed his collar and dragged him bodily back inside and closed the flap.

“I love you,” Severus gasped. “God, I love you.”

“Fuck _you,”_ Harry snarled, sinking one hand into Severus’ hair and making a fist. “No talking.” He kissed him again, aggressively, and Severus pressed closer, sliding one knee between his thighs against the cold stone at his back, and Harry arched up and into him with a groan of fierce frustration. “Do the thing. Do the dome thing. SEVERUS. NOW.”

“The dome -? Oh. Yes. Uh - ” Severus fumbled for his wand and almost dropped it. “ _Praesidiaridam. Calorcaeli. Protego Totalem - Cave Inimicum. Sanctusterram Nox. Excoquatur Interra!”_ He finished in a rush and then pulled Harry off the cliff wall and onto the sand. “Oh, fuck - hold on.” He waved his wand one more time and a rug appeared underneath them. _“Tapetevocare.”_ Harry yanked Severus down on top of him. 

“You’re a huge cunt,” he hissed.

“Sorry,” Severus answered, pinning him to the ground with the force of his kiss. “I’m sorry.” He could feel Harry hard underneath him and pressed down, and Harry’s hands pulled savagely at his clothes. 

“I need you inside me right now,” he said. 

“But - your friends - ”

“I don’t CARE. I’ll vanish your clothes. Are you listening? Right _NOW.”_

Severus pulled back to tear his robes over his head and Harry hurled his glasses off his face, stripping off his pullover and shirt. Severus started to do the same but Harry slapped his hands away from his own buttons. 

“Leave it! Trousers.”

“Yes,” Severus agreed, breathlessly unhooking his belt and moving to his fly. Harry kicked off his jeans and underwear, and then, naked, launched himself into Severus’ lap, spilling him onto his back and straddling him.

“C’mon,” he demanded, grabbing Severus’ wand from the ground, pressing it into his hand, and then holding it to his own skin. Severus looked up at him, awed, and for a moment he couldn’t even remember what the hell he was supposed to do. “Severus!” Harry snarled, squeezing him with his knees. _“C’mon!”_

“Oh - yes - yes.” He spoke the incantation, and Harry shivered and flushed pink as the magic hit him, just like always, and Severus was pretty sure he was hallucinating but he could deal with that later, because right now the sun was setting behind Harry’s head, lighting the sky up red and gold, and Harry was lifting up onto his knees, reaching beneath himself to hold Severus steady, and without preamble, lowering himself down. 

“Wait - ” Severus gasped, “Harry - wait - you’ll hurt yourself - that’s - too - _oh -_ ” He dropped his head back in helpless ecstasy as Harry sank down around him. 

“Shut up,” Harry growled, bracing both hands on Severus' chest. “I can take it. I can - oh _fuck - finally.”_ He let out a gorgeous little gasp as he seated himself fully, and Severus’ hips flexed up of their own accord. 

“God almighty,” he moaned. _“Harry.”_

“Missed fucking me, have you?” Harry demanded, raising up a little and then rocking back down. “Missed coming inside me? _Answer me.”_

“I missed - _everything_ \- everything about you. God _\- ”_ Severus slid his palms over Harry’s hips, down his thighs, and then back up to his waist, reverent, _worshipful._ “Your _skin -_ The way you _smell -”_ He reached one hand to touch Harry’s cock where it was curving up towards his belly, but hesitated. “Can I?” he breathed. “Harry, can I?”

“Pathetic,” Harry spat back, lifting himself up and then dropping down, hard. “What happened to the man I fell in love with, huh? Where’s my master? _Where is he?”_

“Is that - who - you want?” Severus choked out, his head curling up off the ground as Harry’s body rippled around him. “Holy - ”

“Who else?” Harry snarled, fisting his hands in Severus’ shirt, riding him mercilessly, holding him to the ground. “Who - the _fuck_ \- do you _think_ I want?”

Severus was already looking at him - gazing _rapturously_ up at him - but suddenly, his eyes refocused. Harry wanted him the way he’d been before, did he? Harry wanted some force? Severus could give him that. He could be that kind of man. He _was_ that kind of man. 

“He’s here.” He grabbed Harry’s waist with both hands. “I’m still him, if you’ll have me.” 

_“YES!_ GOD - what are you, _deaf?”_

Oh.

Harry wasn’t just pushing for force. He was pushing for _fury._ Of course he was. Didn’t Severus know him?

Baring his teeth, he pitched Harry onto his back. 

“I can hear you just fine,” he growled.

“Oh, _yes,”_ Harry gasped, grabbing the back of Severus’ neck and wrapping his legs around him. “Yes. That’s it. You want me? You think you can keep me? You better _show me.”_

“ _Want_ you? _”_ Severus asked, seizing Harry’s wrists and forcing them to the ground. “I _have you._ You’re _mine.”_

Harry sneered at him. _“Prove it.”_

***

“What do you think they’re doing out there?” Hermione whispered, her ear pressed to the canvas. “I can’t hear anything!”

“Get away from there,” Ron hissed, striding back and forth. “Do you _want_ to hear whatever they’re doing? Merlin, did you see him put Harry on the cliff like that? Jeez. Rough.”

“He seemed fine.”

“Get away from there! Give him some privacy, Hermione.” He stopped, and glared at her. “That’s his _soulmate.”_

“Don’t be mad at me just because your Patronus is a terrier!”

***

“You’re breaking the _rules._ Where are your colors?”

“Fuck the _colors,”_ Harry snarled, throwing his head back against the ground as Severus thrust into him, bearing down on his wrists with all his weight. “BITE ME.”

“Is that an insult or an order?” Severus demanded. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He just sank his teeth into Harry’s chest and sucked hard.

“Fuck, ohh _fuck - ”_ Harry moaned. “More - more - harder - ” Severus moved to his neck, biting again, vicious, _savage,_ his hips jerking uncontrollably forward at the sound that came out of him, and Harry resisted hard against his grip, pressing his feet into the carpet. “Don’t come yet. Severus - _Don’t-”_ He arched up off the ground, lifting his hips like he wanted it deeper _._ And he usually did, didn’t he? Deeper. All the way.

“You’re making it - _really_ \- _hard on me. GOD.”_ Severus squeezed his eyes shut, thinking desperately of Harry’s friends, meters away in their musty old tent, and the edge receded just enough.

“HARDER,” Harry demanded. And… the edge was back.

_Holy hell. FOCUS._

Severus released his wrists and raked his nails down Harry’s chest, and Harry _whimpered,_ and curled his head up off the ground, and Severus pinned him back down by the throat.

“No,” he hissed, and Harry seemed to like that, too. He seemed to like that _a lot._ Severus had almost forgotten how much he _liked_ everything. He’d been so consumed with the loss of their intimacy, their bond - how much he missed the sound of his voice, his laughter, the warmth of his body in sleep - he’d almost forgotten how good it felt to _fuck him._ How passionate he was. How _sexual._ How much he _wanted._ More, always more, always _harder - deeper - more._ His desperate need for Severus - for his body - his hands - for absolutely everything he had to offer.

Severus wrapped his free arm around Harry’s thighs to pull him into each thrust, digging the toes of his boots into the rug, and through it, into the sand, and suddenly, all the fury drained from Harry’s voice, and… he said the magic word.

 _“Please -_ Severus _\- Please -_ ” 

God, that _voice._ Severus bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. After so long it was almost too much.

“Fuck - me _\- Please - ”_

How many times had Harry begged him for more? Fifty? A hundred? They burst to the surface, every single one of them, one after the other, all the way back to Number Twelve, up against the wall, with Severus’ fingers in his hair, trying to tell him to stop. 

But Harry didn’t stop, did he? Harry _pursued him._ Chased after him. Came right to his room in the middle of the night, crawled right in his _lap_ even though Severus told him no. Even though it was absolutely forbidden, even though Severus was a fucking _teacher,_ and a two-faced, back-stabbing _spy_ hanging on the arm of his mortal enemy. Harry didn’t care _._ Harry knew exactly what he wanted from the very beginning, and Harry was in control then, and he was in control now, and Severus wasn’t his master. Never had been. Severus was his _servant,_ his _vassal_. And lord in heaven, did it feel good to _serve._

He wrapped his fingers around Harry's cock, wet against his belly, and Harry whined, and jerked, and Severus pulled back just enough to see his face. Severus wanted to watch him come. Wanted to _make him._ Wanted to fucking _take him apart,_ and leave him panting, and sweating, and shaking, and soft and lovely and _satisfied._

“More?” he purred, twisting and circling his hand, smearing the pre-come dripping out of him. “You _always want more.”_ He tightened his fingers around Harry’s throat, feeling him swallow, and moved his hand faster. “It feels good to submit, doesn’t it? You’ve been pushing me back, but all you really wanted was to be _under me._ Isn’t that right?”

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Severus just squeezed harder, cutting off his air.

“I don’t want to hear it, Potter,” he growled. “I want to _see it.”_ Harry’s eyes went unfocused, and Severus bit his cheek so hard he tasted blood. _He’s so close. You can make it. You can make it._ “Show me,” he said. “Show me how good it feels.”

Harry’s body contracted, and Severus relaxed the hand around his throat, wanting to hear him after all. And Harry did not disappoint. The sound that came out of him was _unbearable_ \- long - low - an unfettered moan of such desperate, feral, animal pleasure that it hit Severus right in the spine, and he was going to come, right now, and no amount of biting his own cheek or worrying about Harry’s friends was going to buy him even a single second. He cried out, and Harry’s release pulsed out over his fingers, and that was it. _God -_ it was like being turned _inside out -_


	21. Lover

Severus kept moving as long as he could. Kept fucking him until he was absolutely limp - until they both were - wanting to drink down as much of Harry’s voice and skin and breath as he could. Then, finally, totally spent, he fell forward over Harry’s body, and buried his face into his neck. Severus’ heart was pounding out of his chest, and there were spots in his vision, and Harry’s skin smelled like manna from heaven, and god - how had he had the patience to wait this long? He must be some sort of saint.

“I love you,” he murmured, and Harry’s hands came up to his back, sliding over the fabric of his clothes. Merlin, he was still in his _clothes._ “More - more than ever. I tried - to tell you - ”

“I know,” Harry answered, panting hard. “I know. I’m - sorry - sorry I called you a cunt.” Severus let out a breath of laughter. 

“I think I deserved it.”

Harry chuckled a little then, too, and turned his face into Severus’ hair. “Hey, uh…Severus?”

“Hm?”

“I know this is way too late, but… is the dome thing soundproof?” 

Severus laughed again, pressing a kiss to Harry’s damp skin. “Oh, yes, perfectly soundproof.” He made to pull back, but the hands on him tightened. “I’m not leaving - I’m just going to clean you up. And… my clothes.” They relaxed again, and Severus groped for his wand. _“Scourgify.”_

When they were clean, and Severus’ clothes were put to rights, he laid back down beside Harry on the carpet he’d conjured. It wasn’t his best work. The pattern was ugly, and the color clashed with Harry’s eyes. He supposed he’d been distracted when he made it. 

“So…” Harry said, feeling for his glasses and putting them on to look at him. “Most precious bond achievable in life.”

“Are you telling me you didn’t know?” Severus answered blandly. Harry gave him a smack, but Severus just took his hand and kissed it. “It’s a legend, as I said.”

“Well, is it true?”

“I don’t know how significant our Patronuses are or aren’t,” Severus began, kissing his hand again, and then the very tip of his index finger. “But I do know that in your absence I felt the loss of not only a partner, or a lover, but the core of my very being.” Harry’s eyes glittered.

“How romantic.”

“Believe me, or don’t. It’s the truth.”

“I know it is.” He stroked his fingertips across Severus’ chest, up towards his collar, and then across his jaw. “I felt it, too. When you were gone. It was like I was empty. Hollowed out. And… I was… confused.” He shifted closer, and Severus pulled him in, nestling his head into the crook of his neck. “I really missed you,” Harry whispered. Severus brushed his fingers into his hair, against his scalp.

“And I, you…” he began. But he couldn’t finish. There was too much to say - too much still undone - and he suddenly found that it took all his will to stay present, to keep himself from thinking of the future, or, indeed, anything at all but the way Harry felt in his arms at that very moment. He bore down, took a breath, and tried again. “I thought I would never touch you again. What a gift you gave me… when you let me kiss your cheek.” Harry sighed against his chest, and it was long, and slow, and contented. And that was a gift, too. His contentment.

“You should have just told me,” he said. “If you’d just told me, I would have stayed. You should have just told me you had to kill Dumbledore.”

“How could you have stayed?” 

“Well…” Harry thought about it. “I would have waited for you. We could have skipped right to this part. Instead of… you know… all that other stuff.”

“I doubt your friends would have tolerated much of this.”

“Ha,” Harry said. “Depends on how good your food is, I guess. But… tell me ahead of time if you have to kill anyone else like that, ok?” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Severus answered, closing his eyes. But then Harry lifted his head, and one of his fingers drew down the bridge of Severus' nose, and he opened them again. 

“I love you,” Harry said. 

“You are an angel,” Severus answered, and kissed him. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Me, too. Even while you were here. I’m sorry I didn’t… That I wasn’t-” Severus kissed him again, cutting him off, and just kept kissing him until Harry pushed him back.

“Hey,” he said, and when Severus tried again, laughed, and turned his face away. “Hey! Stop. I need to put my clothes on.” 

“Why? Stay naked.”

“We’re outside.”

Severus gestured to the rapidly darkening sky. “Dome.”

Harry snorted and sat up. “Very cautious and responsible,” he said. “Definitely something a veteran of the first Wizard War would say.” He reached for his underwear, but Severus caught his arm before he could touch them. “What?”

“You want your clothes?” he asked. “Summon them.”

“But - my wand - ”

Severus squeezed his wrist. Now was the time to push. Finally. “Harry. Listen to me. You want your master? I’m him, and I’m telling you, you don’t need that wand. That lumos was weak. It was worthless. If you want your clothes, summon them. Summon what you want.” Harry looked at him, and then at the pile of muggle clothing, and twisted his mouth. “Use your power.” Severus squeezed tighter, and hardened his voice. “Harry. _Now.”_ At once, everything he’d been wearing flew to him with so much force that his pullover hit him in the face.

“Oh, shit,” he gasped, struggling to catch it all with one arm. “But - You - oh.”

Severus released him and leaned back on his hands as Harry pulled on his underwear and then his jeans. “How obedient,” he said. “What a good boy.”

“But - You fixed me. How did you - How did you do that?” 

“Oh, just the same as always,” Severus answered. “By loving you, in whatever way you need. Apparently you occasionally require love of the ruthless, demanding, violent type.”

Harry was putting on his sweater when Severus said it, and when his head popped out, he smiled wistfully. And Severus had been trying to make a joke. Harry had such fringe ideas about what did and didn’t count as romance. Flowers? Chocolates? No. Biting. Choking. Restraints. 

Harry really was his soulmate.

“I wish you could stay,” Harry said.

Severus sat up and beckoned, and Harry nestled in between his legs, resting back against his chest. “My devotion to you has never wavered,” Severus began. “Not even while I was terrorizing you at school. Matching Patronuses or no, war or no, physical touch or no, you are the love of my life. Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Give me your hands, then.” Harry did, and Severus cupped his own around them. “These hands are all the casting tools you need,” he said. “All your magic, every miraculous thing you’ve ever done, every flower you’ve ever made, every spark of fire, every charm, it’s all still inside you. I know it, absolutely. You don’t need your substitute wand, or your Phoenix-feather wand, or the Elder Wand, or anything else. You yourself are a conduit. Priceless, and unique. Light?” A luminous golden sphere appeared immediately in Harry’s cupped hands, and he jumped like he was surprised to see it. “You see? Send it out over the water.” Harry spread his fingers, and the glow moved out past the edge of Severus’ wards, and out to hover over the sea. Out there, above the waves, it sparkled and refracted like a low star, and Harry sighed, and relaxed back against him. Severus wrapped both arms around his waist, turning his face into his hair against the remorse that suddenly reappeared in his mind like a landmine.

How lonely Harry must have been all this time. How scared. Without his magic, without Severus, without anything. Alone. Betrayed. Powerless. Cut in half, as Severus had been cut in half, but worse than that. Disarmed, at the center of a war, with a target on his back. A hundred targets. 

_No, no. Stay here with him. Come on. Stay present. Think of something else. Think about Harry. He’s in your arms right now. Stay with him._

“Have you ever seen the ocean before?” Severus asked quietly, brushing his nose behind Harry’s ear.

“Not until we came here. Why?” 

“I just wondered.”

“Mm. Can I ask you something?

“Anything.”

“Will you have to change this memory?”

“I’ll hide it,” Severus answered, and kissed Harry’s temple. “I have to hide everything.”

“What happens when you do that?”

“To the memories? Nothing happens to them. Every thought I’ve ever had about you is still there, buried beneath the false ones. They’re just covered. Protected. It’s almost like architecture. But I have to repair the barriers regularly. If I see you, or think too deeply of you, they crack. Splinter apart.”

There was a silence.

“But… what if He calls you before you can fix it?”

“Fatal misfortune.”

“Severus.” 

“Hm?”

“You’re telling me that you have to redo all your Occlumency every time you see me or even _think about me?”_

“Oh, yes. There have been some very close calls. When I presented those lies… the terrible ones… I could feel my fortifications failing while I was sitting right there, next to the Dark Lord. His hands were still on me. It was… terrifying.” Harry sat up and turned around to look at him.

“You risk your life like that _every time?”_

“I have from the beginning. I thought you knew. Though it has admittedly been much harder lately. I’ve never experienced anything as difficult to hide as you are.” 

“Cuz I’m your soulmate.”

“That would explain it.”

Harry glared at him and then leaned in, bracing his hands on Severus’ thighs. “You should have just talked to me,” he breathed against Severus’ lips. “You should have just told me what was happening.”

“I know,” Severus answered, closing the gap. “I’m sorry.”

Harry allowed him a single kiss before pulling away. “You need to go. I called you right out of school, didn’t I? You were in your Headmaster’s robes. You should go. You should go fix your barriers or whatever. They’re totally fucked up now, aren’t they?” 

“They feel completely gone just now, yes,” Severus answered, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him back in. Harry gave a little squeak of surprise as Severus kissed him, and then a lower sound as he opened his mouth, and Severus was just thinking that maybe he could stay a _bit_ longer when Harry pushed him back again.

“Hey - stop,” he gasped, tearing Severus’ hand out of his clothes. “You have to go. Go fix your head. Patch it up. Alright?” He stood up and tugged on Severus’ arm. “You have to. If He called you now - I’d - never forgive myself.” Severus did not obey him. He just caught Harry’s shirt again and jerked him back down to his knees. Harry squawked in indignation. “Severus! Hey!”

“I don’t think I’m quite finished with you yet, actually,” Severus said, seizing his hair and kissing him again before he could even attempt to regain his feet. At first, Harry resisted, but Severus did not let him go, and after a moment, he stopped resisting. Went quite weak, in fact. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed that?” Severus breathed, wrapping his other arm around Harry’s waist to keep him steady. “I’ve been _starving_ for you.”

“If you’re trying to get me going again it’s not going to work,” Harry answered breathlessly, but Severus just tightened the fingers in his hair until his mouth fell open. It didn’t even take that much. It was so _easy._

“No?” he murmured. “Are you sure?”

Harry’s hands came up to his chest. “Fucking hell,” he gasped. “There’s a - war - on.”

“Language,” Severus admonished, and released him. Harry fell back onto his heels, and then righted himself, looking very annoyed. 

“Want to play, do you?”

At once, he was right back in Severus’ arms, up against him, grabbing the back of his neck and pressing their mouths together. The kiss was fierce, and Harry’s teeth closed hard on his bottom lip, triggering a fresh rush of desire through Severus’ veins. That was Harry’s point, of course. That Severus wasn’t the only one that could be _manipulative._ Well. He was right. And Severus did want to play. It felt good to _play,_ really. Like they had all the time in the world. So, he sank both hands into Harry’s hair and took control of the kiss, and when he felt Harry hard again against his thigh, pushed him unceremoniously onto his back.

“Severus,” Harry gasped as he sprawled backward. “C’mon, you _can’t.”_

But Severus could. Severus Snape could do whatever the fuck he wanted. 

“You think I haven't learned my lesson?” he asked, unfastening Harry’s jeans. “You think I haven’t figured you out?” Harry propped up on his elbows, and Severus didn’t so much as break eye contact as he reached inside his clothes to touch him. “Come now, Potter. I’ve been staring at you - waiting for you - _pining after you -_ for _weeks._ So polite. So patient. Crushing every urge to touch you. And after all that chivalry and courtesy and consideration, I find out that you just wanted me to hold you down? Well, I’ve no idea when I’ll get my hands on you again after tonight, and I’m going to suck you off right now, and you are not going to stop me.” He tugged Harry’s underclothes out of the way and laved his tongue up the underside of his cock and over the head, and when he looked back up, saw Harry staring down at him like he was looking into a total eclipse. “Are you?” he asked, wetting his lips. “Go on. Tell me no.” Then, he opened his mouth, and Harry did not tell him no. Harry apparently only had one thing to say, and it came out strangled as he dropped his head back to the ground. 

_“God,_ I love you.” 

Severus just hummed in response, and when Harry’s hands appeared on his head, he let them stay. He rather liked it, actually. He rather wanted Harry to take his pleasure. He hummed again, and Harry’s hands twisted into his hair, and his hips flexed up, and Severus relaxed his throat, and it was so incredibly, undeniably _good,_ that he wished fiercely to somehow capture the feeling and save it, to bottle everything about this one, necessary night, so that when Harry was gone he could inject it right into his veins. Just _overdose_ on his love for this incredible boy. This _man._ This supernatural fucking _incubus._ He would never get enough. Not even in ten lifetimes.

Harry’s hands fisted, bringing him back into the moment, and Severus looked back up at him, at his heaving chest, and his head as it tipped back, and the bite mark on his neck, and Merlin he was _blinding._ He moaned low in his throat, and a tremor ran through Harry’s body, and he held Severus’ head down hard, pressing up with his legs, and Severus had a _vision -_ Harry, on his back, on a plush, king-sized bed. Sun, streaming through the windows and across his naked body, healthy, and strong, and twisting in pleasure on white sheets. Not in the dungeons. Not in the bloody _tent_.

But, no. It wasn’t a vision. It was just a wish. A desperate prayer.

“Oh _fuck-”_

Severus swallowed all he was given, and kept swallowing, and kept himself still, and receptive, as Harry cursed and pleaded, and declared his undying love, and then finally, finally, went lax.

“Holy - ” he gasped. Severus just gave a little murmur as the tension left him, and splayed his hands flat onto his hips, brushing his thumbs against his exposed skin. “Severus…”

“Mm?” Harry’s cock was beginning to soften in his mouth, but he didn’t want to stop. He caressed it with his tongue, and hollowed his cheeks just enough to make Harry twitch.

“Are you - trying - to kill me?” He collapsed back onto the ugly rug. 

“Mm,” Severus murmured again, and then very gently released him. “Quite the opposite,” he answered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I am trying very hard to keep you alive.” 

“I’m pretty sure… you just… sucked out my soul. Dementor-style. Or - ” he laughed. “Whatever the opposite of a Dementor is.”

Severus crawled over him. “Have it back, then,” he murmured, and kissed him. Harry opened his mouth immediately, and he submitted very nicely, and his hands fell back to the ground. 

_Fuck him again._

Severus was almost hard enough. Given a few more minutes, he could just… have him again. Make Harry come _again._ He glanced up at the tent, mere meters away. 

_How reckless, exactly, are you willing to be? You’ve had him twice. Let him go back to his friends. Fix your barriers, like he told you._

“Harry,” he said.

“Hm?” 

“I adore you.”

Harry’s eyes opened. “You’re leaving now, aren’t you?”

“I should.” Severus kissed his jaw, and then his neck, and withdrew a little to look down at him, flushed, spent, and spread out on his back. He really did not want to leave. At all. “I could stay.” It came out without thought, and for a moment, it really felt possible. “I could stay with you. Protect you. Fight for you.” _Fuck you again._

Harry reached up and touched his lips with three fingers to silence him. “No, you can’t,” he said. “Don’t be insane.” Severus just kissed his fingertips, and then, in a moment of impetuous madness, grabbed his wrist and pinned it back to the ground, and kissed him again. It wasn’t chaste, and Harry moaned into his mouth, his trapped hand clenching into a fist, and Severus tilted his head to get more - and merciful lord, forget _wanting_ to leave, he wasn’t going to be _able_ to leave.

He pulled back.

“Oh,” he said. “This is a little more difficult than I thought it would be.”

Harry seized his shirt and yanked him back down. “Is that news to you?” he murmured. “Fuck me again.”

“Harry.” How had Severus forgotten this part? The _demands_. “Are you reading my mind?”

“I’m reading your face,” Harry breathed. “You’re looking at me like you want to eat me alive.”

It took about four more seconds of Harry’s tongue in his mouth before Severus was, in fact, hard enough to go again. Harry’s trousers were still undone, and who knew when he’d get another chance? 

_Have him again. Make him come again._

But… he shouldn’t. He should go take care of his memories, and man his post. He should return to the school. He had… work to do.

“Fuck me again. C’mon. It’ll be so easy. I’m still so open. C’mon.”

_Well._

_What are you going to do, disappoint him? So, you’re reckless. Just own it. Fuck him again. Make him beg. Again. He wants you to do it._

“Fine,” Severus growled. “Fine, you little madman.” He flipped Harry onto his stomach and pulled down his waistband, and Harry lifted his hips to allow it with a little chuckle, pillowing his head on his arms like he had never been more comfortable in all his life. Shameless, and insatiable, and insistent as always. Severus undid his flies, and reached for his wand. But then, he hesitated. “Do you need more lubrication?” he asked. Harry glanced at him over his shoulder.

“Nope.”

“Mm.” 

Harry was right. He didn’t need more. He was _wet,_ and Severus slipped inside him to the base like a hot knife into butter. 

“Fuck,” he moaned, bracing both hands on Harry’s hips. Harry just closed his eyes, shifting underneath him like he wanted to spread his legs, but the jeans around his thighs wouldn’t allow it.

“Slow,” he breathed. “Severus - oh - go slow.”

_He must be so sensitive. What a shame it would be to… torture him._

“As you wish,” Severus answered, dragging his hips back and rocking forward. “Your majesty.” He did it again, slow and steady until their bodies were flush together, and then leaned over to whisper into Harry’s ear. “I’ve dreamt of you every night, you know,” he said. “Touching you. Kissing you. Holding you - _down.”_ Harry flexed his legs, squeezing around him, and Severus let out a sound that would have been embarrassing if he cared. “I thought I’d go mad wanting you.”

“Ah - god,” Harry answered. “Go on. I can take it. Go on.”

“I know you can.” Severus thrust in harder, jerking his hips forward, and then kissed Harry’s cheek, so tenderly. “Have you any idea the self control I’ve been exerting all these weeks? I almost snapped so many times. Almost just dragged you out of that awful tent by the _hair.”_

“What would my friends think?” Harry asked, a little shiver of laughter in his voice, even as he cried out.

“That I was busy fucking you, of course. Just like they’re thinking right now. That I’m _railing you,_ right outside. How crass of me to have you like this, when they’re waiting for you to return. And for such a very long time. Scandal.”

Harry moaned and then pressed his knuckles against his mouth like he was trying to stifle the noises he was making, and Severus wondered if maybe he was an exhibitionist along with everything else. He might be. They hadn’t had much time to explore that particular deviancy. It was too risky. But he had tried to provoke Severus into pinning him to the wall outside Slughorn's daft christmas party, and he had wanted those horrific marks to take to the Burrow. And he certainly liked sending Severus filthy messages out in the open where other people could see. Or, he used to. 

“Imagine how you’ll feel going back in there,” Severus continued, his voice low. “With my come _dripping_ out of you.”

“Jesus,” Harry murmured, turning his face into his arm. _“Severus - ”_

“I bet you liked that at school, didn’t you? Sitting in my classes with your mouth watering for my cock? Sore and tender from what I’ve done to you. Trying to hide your bruises, with all those people around. All those people thinking you’re so _innocent._ The golden boy of Hogwarts, down in the dungeons, on his _knees.”_ Harry’s hips pressed down against the ground, and Severus’ lips parted. “You’re already hard, aren’t you?” _Absolute perfection._

“Yes,” Harry gasped. “It - kind of - _hurts.”_

“I bet it does.” He scraped his teeth over the bite on Harry’s neck, and thrust in sharply. “I bet it hurts.”

Harry yelped and dug his forehead into the ground. “You’re all back to normal, huh?” he asked, transparently trying to control his voice. He was failing.

“Didn’t you ask for me?” Severus braced his hands on Harry’s back, holding him down, and Harry let out a truly desperate whine. “Here I am.”

“Please - Can you - _please - ”_ He broke off, and a violent shiver ran through him. 

“I think you have no idea what you want just now. Color?”

“P-purple?”

“Mm. You’re so precious when I’ve fucked your brain right out of your body.” He withdrew almost all the way, and Harry’s body spasmed and gripped at him, and he stayed like that, bearing his weight on his hands as Harry let out a groan of frustration and scrabbled at the carpet.

“Oh GOD - ” he cried out. “Please - _Fuck_ \- don’t - don’t do that - ” He tried to press back, but Severus just held him down until he gave up. 

“Precious,” he repeated, and when Harry’s head finally dropped back to the ground, he thrust back in, all in one smooth stroke, and Harry’s hips flexed down again like he would take absolutely any friction on his cock and say thank you. “Oh, do you want to come again? I could make you.”

“Yes.” He was absolutely breathless.

“Say please.”

_“Please.”_

“Please what?”

“SIR. Fuck - _fuck -_ I _can’t - ”_

Severus almost lost it right then, but he managed to control himself - it was always a little easier the second time - and when he pulsed down into him a little faster, Harry’s body tautened, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He was probably covered with goosebumps. Too bad he was almost fully dressed. Just in his jeans and pullover, calling Severus ‘sir’ and taking his cock on this godforsaken beach wherever they were. 

Poor thing. He was so tense.

“Relax, my love,” Severus murmured, summoning his wand to his hand. “If you don’t relax you’ll never get off. Maybe I can help you. Would you like that?” Harry just made a sort of choked-off sobbing noise and tried to press against him, but Severus shifted his free hand to the small of his back to keep him still. “You seemed to like that heat I gave you back in the forest. That relaxed you, didn’t it? Did you like it?”

“Now - you’re - definitely trying to kill me,” Harry gasped. “Just do _anything. God.”_

“Did you like it? Do you want it again?” Severus insisted, still moving steadily. Rocking into him, deep, and slow, and easy. Just what Harry asked for. He was probably regretting that, now. 

“YES. I liked it. FUCK.”

“I know you did. I hadn’t heard a noise like that in _months._ You _moaned_ for me. Fell right into my arms. You have no idea how that felt. How excruciating it was to hear your _pleasure_ when you wouldn’t let me touch you.”

“Are - you - punishing me?” 

“No,” Severus answered. “I’m giving you exactly what you want. _Calefaceret corposem.”_ Immediately, Harry went slack like he’d been drugged, and Severus tugged his hips back a little to get one hand under him and onto his cock, and Harry started to shake like he was trying to thrust into his hand but couldn’t manage it. “Mm. That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Sa-adist,” he choked out. 

“Color?” Severus asked, fucking him a bit harder, tightening his hand just enough to give Harry what he needed as his hips were pushed foward under Severus’ weight.

_“Jesus - MERCY.”_

“Mercy is not a color,” Severus purred, pressing his thumb against the pulsing vein on the underside of Harry’s cock and dipping his head to bite the back of his neck. Harry seized up. His whole body.

 _“Gree-een.”_ It came out as a whimper, and Severus could tell in the shuddering inward curl of his spine that he’d finally tipped over, though hardly anything at all came out of him.

“That’s a good boy,” Severus breathed, and, letting him fall back limp to the rug, set about chasing his own pleasure. He tried hard not to be too rough after all that, but even so, Harry whined in an agony of overstimulation, and reached back to claw at him, searching for something to grab. Finally, he found Severus’ wrist where it was braced against the ground, and his fingers curled around it, and he said Severus’ name, and then something came out of his hand. Some kind of magic - or magical _revenge_ \- and it reached right inside Severus’ body and _tore_ an orgasm out of him.

_“Oh FUCK - What - in God’s name -”_

His spine had come out with it. He was sure. 

Who had asked for mercy? Harry? _God._

He collapsed.

It took a little longer to mobilize the energy to move that time. They just lay together, breathing hard, as Severus struggled to rally enough willpower to stop crushing him, or pull out, or cast a cleaning charm, or do anything at all, really. Under and around him, Harry’s body was still rippling with aftershocks, and radiating heat like a little sun, and that was what finally made Severus’ brain turn back on.

“Oh… _finite,”_ he breathed, lifting the heating spell, and Harry jerked like he’d been asleep. “Harry?” Nothing. “Harry.”

“Hm?” Maybe he’d been unconscious. He might have been.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“What did you do to me?”

“Oh, uh… I dunno…” he laughed shallowly under the dead weight of Severus on top of him. “I wanted you to come. Sorry… Did it feel… good?”

“Yes, it certainly did,” Severus scoffed. “Though a little warning would have been polite.” 

_“Polite,”_ Harry muttered. _“Pff.”_

Laboriously, Severus propped himself up onto his hands, and cleaned them both again. Then, he sat back on his heels, and then gave Harry a little swat on the behind. “Up.” 

“Mmh?” 

“Come on.” 

Harry didn’t move. “... I can’t.”

“Shall I order you?”

Very slowly, Harry lifted up on his elbows and then flopped back down in a dramatic sort of way. “The war is over,” he said. “I’m dead.”

“Oh, no. I’m in so much trouble,” Severus answered, offering his hand with a side of eye-roll. “Shall I call a coroner?”

Harry pulled up his jeans like it was one of the tasks of Hercules, and then took Severus’ help to get to a sitting position. “Oh, shit,” he murmured, swaying on his knees. “Head rush.”

“You should drink some water.”

“Hey, uh… remember that time I said you were an excellent lover?”

“Yes. You were off your box on Felix Felicis.” 

“I was right.”

Severus frowned at him. “Are you even going to be able to walk back to your tent?”

“I don’t think so,” Harry answered, and pitched back onto the ground. “Fuck… I thought… two… was pretty much the limit.”

“Not if you’re seventeen,” Severus answered. “I’m not going to leave you out here until I know you can walk.”

“Better stay, then,” Harry muttered into the rug. “Sleep on top of me, please.”

_I wish._

Severus pointed his wand at him. _“Renervate.”_

Harry jerked back upright like he’d been stung by a bee. “Hey!” he gasped. “Jeez. I was enjoying my torpor.”

“And what happened to insisting I return to the school post-haste to ‘patch up my head?’” 

“Didn’t have to _renervate_ me,” Harry grumbled, adjusting his glasses. Then he started patting his hair like he was trying to neaten it. What a fool’s errand. Severus laughed. “What?” 

“If you’re hoping to convince your friends that I didn’t just fuck you under the stars, you are in for a severe disappointment.”

Harry gave him a very unconvincing glare. “Why?”

“Because,” Severus began, reaching out to brush his thumb across Harry’s lower lip, bitten, and wet, and red. “I didn’t just fuck you under the stars, I fucked you under the stars, sucked you off under the stars, and then fucked you _again.”_

“Under the _stars,”_ Harry shot back.

“Yes. And you look absolutely debauched.” He got to his feet, and offered Harry his arm. Harry took it with a little huff of irritation, but the effect was lessened slightly by the fact that he staggered when he tried to stand up.

“God. Worthless _renervate.”_ His knees buckled and Severus caught him. 

“Merlin, control your legs,” Severus said, righting him again. “I was the one with a magical orgasm.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Oh, very funny.” He held Harry steady by the shoulders and looked down at him. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what? Begging so prettily?”

“For forgiving me.”

“Oh.” All at once Harry’s annoyance softened into something that might have been fondness, or even melancholy. “I said I would, don’t you remember? I promised.” He smoothed his hands down Severus’ chest. “Go, now. You really, really have to go.” Severus knew it. He should have gone already.

“I do.” He bent down to pick up his robes, loath though he was to lose Harry’s touch, and shrugged them on. Once they were fastened in place, he turned back towards the savior of the Wizarding World, and kissed him one more time, cupping his cheek in one hand. “I love you,” he said. “I hope your friends aren’t too traumatized.” 

He turned on the spot.

_CRACK._

***

“Hullo,” Ron said slowly when Harry opened the tent flap. He and Hermione were sitting in opposite corners. “How ya doing, mate?”

“Oh, I’m… fine,” Harry answered, running his fingers through his hair. Ron’s eyes danced over his face, to his neck, and then resolutely back to his face. Immediately Harry’s hand flew up to the spot that had caught his gaze. Severus had bitten him on the neck, hadn’t he? Really hard, too. Shit. It was probably black. He chuckled nervously. “Sorry about that. We… uh… needed to… talk.” Hermione rustled the pages of her book from the other side of the room. “Did you guys have a row or something?”

“Oh NOOooooo,” she answered waspishly from behind her copy of _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore._ “Ron’s just very convinced that it’s _my_ fault _our_ patronus’ aren’t _mates.”_

“Am NOT!” Ron burst out. “I’m just _worried_ about my _friend._ Cause he was _gone for a while!”_ He crossed his arms. “And he’s the CHOSEN ONE and everyone is trying to KILL HIM!”

“Well, I’m fine,” Harry said. “And - hey! My magic is back.” He held out his hands and a cascade of daisy chains appeared in his palms. “See?” 

“Oh!” Hermione gasped, lowering her book to see what he’d made. “Harry, that’s - ” Her eyes jumped to his face and then did the same little dance that Ron’s had. “You’ve got a - oh.” She turned red, and retreated back behind the book. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“Yeah, uh,” Harry said. “I’m just gonna… wash up. Be back in a bit.” He scooted sideways to the little bathroom, grabbing a spoon from the kitchen on the way as a substitute mirror. Inside, he shined the spoon on his shirt and then held it up to try to see. “Aw, fuck,” he whispered. The mark on his neck wasn’t just black. It had a ring of very clear teeth marks around it. Red ones. 

He touched his bracelet. 

_They were totally fine until they saw my neck,_ he sent. _What are you, a wild animal?_

 _[Apologies]_ appeared. _[Actually, no. I’m not sorry]_ a pause. _[And if anyone is a wild animal it’s you]_

Harry laughed. 

_Pervert._

_[I think you mean Sir]_

_[Oh and make sure to thank Miss Granger for me]_

_For what?_

_[For being so incredibly invasive]_

Harry laughed again, covered his mouth, and then pulled back the collar of his shirt to look down at his chest. There was another suck mark just over his heart, and some very interesting-looking welts that he was pretty sure were from Severus’s nails. 

_Come back tomorrow and fuck me against a tree,_ he sent.

_[Lord in heaven, Potter. I am trying to be responsible]_

_If you are, you’re failing very badly._

_[I know]_ a pause. _[I often do]_

Dinner that night was a silent and deeply awkward affair, for Ron and Hermione seemed unwilling to either speak to each other, or look too hard at Harry. So, Harry ate quickly, drank about three pints of water, and retreated to his bunk as soon as he was done. Up there, he put his snitch away, crossed his legs, and covered himself with Severus’ cloak. Breathing in the smell of him, he closed his eyes, calmed his breathing, and lowered his heart rate. He scanned his body, pulled in his magic, turned towards the brightest place, and stepped inside to a monsoon rain. 

  
  
  


End of Part 3

(click next chapter for art)

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for:
> 
> Pacify Part 4: Sanctum
> 
> Thank you for reading! Your comments keep me alive.


	22. Bonus Art Page: Cracks in the Floor of the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Maintaining his Occlumency


	23. Bonus Art Page 2: Soulmates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmates


	24. Bonus Art Page 3: Silent Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still, he has not spoken


	25. Bonus Art Page 4: Missing the Final Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, I thought we might spend your first day watching your team from afar.” Harry laughed gently. 
> 
> “You’re so soft on me,” he said. 
> 
> “Oh, yes, critically weakened,” Severus answered, and kissed his hair. “But after it’s done, I have something new to teach you.”
> 
> “What’s that?” Harry asked, watching the distant players zoom into action.


	26. Bonus Art Page 5: Severus Left His Cloak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smells like home.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I will hold you 'til I hold you right](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718777) by [Gwendolyn (storiesofchaos)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesofchaos/pseuds/Gwendolyn)
  * [Bruises](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24723163) by [cheshirecat_smile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirecat_smile/pseuds/cheshirecat_smile)




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